CoLu Week 2015
by GemNika
Summary: Seven days of wonderful Cobra/Lucy stories. June 21-June 27. This is rated M for a reason. [Complete.]
1. Introduction

**Welcome to CoLu Week!**

This particular event was created by _Dragon'sHost_ and _Eien ni Touko_ , two of the most hardcore CoLu shippers out there. If you haven't already read their work, I highly suggest it.

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 **Dates:** June 21, 2015 through June 27, 2015

 **Prompts:**

Day 1: _Language_

Day 2: _Caged*_

Day 3: _Fairy Tale*_

Day 4: _Glitter_

Day 5: _Rumors*_

Day 6: _Family_

Day 7: _Journey_

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This week will obviously be Rated M (it's me, we're talking about... Of course that's the rating…). I'm laying down the blanket disclaimer here:

 **Please be aware that this is M for a reason.**

With that being said, I'd like for everyone to get some tissues handy (whether for your tears or… other reasons). I'll be delving into different genres from Adventure to Humor to Tragedy. I will _not_ let you know which genre each prompt falls under, so be prepared for anything. I _will_ , however, tell you all that Day 7 has a happy ending. I couldn't end the week on a sad note... I just couldn't.

In the following stories, unless it's _explicitly_ stated, Tartaros hasn't happened. There will be stories with Cobra and the others being a part of Crime Sorciere, but I will do my best to make sure it's explained in each one how/why the characters are no longer in prison. I've put any necessary information in the Author Notes at the beginnings of the chapters, so I encourage you to read them.

Finally, and this note is super important!

Please note that the three prompts marked with asterisks (*) have been taken down for revision, and will not be replaced within this particular story. I've decided that the continuation pieces from CoLu Week 2016 needed to be paired with the original prompts from CoLu Week 2015 in their own separate stories. I'm currently in the process of revising all CoLu Week entries marked with an asterisk, and those pages in this story have been replaced with a filler page. When the new, revised stories are posted, those filler pages will be replaced, once again, with redirection pages to help new and old readers find the story they're looking for.

It feels kind of confusing right now, but I swear... it'll make sense soon!

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Keep writing, reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting! And, please please please let your fellow readers know about this wonderful upcoming event!

~~GemNika.


	2. Toxic

**A/N: Hey everyone! Welcome to my very first Pairing Week! A huge thanks to _Dragon'sHost_ and _Eien ni Touko_ for creating this particular event! Be sure to check out their own submissions for CoLu Week!**

 **Without further ado, I bring you…**

 **Day 1: Language.**

 **This is a songfic (of course)…**

 **Youtube: watch?v=4xwXOj55nIY**

 ** _Note:_** **I highly suggest giving this version a listen. It's completely different from the original in instrumentation, so… Yeah. The effect is more intense with this cover.**

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 ** _Toxic_**

* * *

He was going to kill them. Every single one of them. How exactly Cobra had found himself being dragged along to some club was something he still couldn't understand, because it was something he wouldn't even agree to under great duress. The lights were too dim and then far too bright, always shining right in his goddamn eyes _every time_ the little spotlights came on. The smells alone were enough to make him ready to cleanse the place with a very large acidic cloud of his breath. Just one well-placed roar, and every bit of sweat and sex and alcohol would be purged from the building—along with the annoying fuckers that were stinking it up.

If that wasn't bad enough, there was the music. Honestly, it had to be some of the worst shit he'd ever heard in his life, and he was positive that a monkey shitting in a tin can would be more enjoyable than this garbage. And, of course, just how fucking _loud_ did it really need to be? Was everyone in this place so utterly deaf that they needed to pump out the same boring, warbling bass beats at such a high decibel? If he had to hear any more of that incessant _wub wub wub_ when the bass dropped, another fucking _beep-boop_ or dissonant whirring noise… Small scale genocide would ensue. Who in their right goddamn mind decided that mixing two otherwise incompatible tracks, adding a reverb to the vocals, and then laying down a side of robots fucking in a back alley dumpster full of rusty nails constituted as music?! Because whoever that person was needed to get their asses maimed in a serious way. And Cobra was more than happy to help them out with it. In fact, he might have to start researching who the fuck it was, so he could pay them a visit very… very soon.

Yes, he was definitely killing them. Just as soon as he finished his drink. That was the only consolation in this shitstain of a place. The barkeep made a mean Glass Cleaner—a drink that was two parts whiskey and one part Windex—and Cobra knew he would need to keep downing these fucking things until Jellal had gotten his jollies off by visiting the redheaded terror while she was on a mission. That was, as per usual, how this shit had started. Tramp Stamp wanted to fuck Ginger Thor, so he asked if anyone wanted to join him on his visit to this club to keep up pretenses. Then Snowball roped Swan Lake into staying behind and having a girls' night filled with matchmaking schemes and some of the most sinister, conniving shit he'd ever heard—just to make those ships of theirs come to fruition. Honestly, those two women had the potential for world domination if they really put their minds to it; a tidbit of knowledge that Cobra swore he would never reveal to anyone. Speedy Gonzalez and the Koolaid Man (a name that Cobra was growing very short of patience in using for Richard, because if the fucker didn't stop with that "Oh YEAH!" bullshit soon… no one would be finding his corpse) were already out on a small "vacation" of sorts that Cobra knew was code for them getting a hotel room and fucking for hours on end.

If that wasn't bad enough, fucking Cruella DeVil—the narcoleptic, two-toned fucknugget—decided to use that moment to wake the fuck up and say he was bored. Rat bastard should have been on _his_ side for staying behind and locked in a room where no one could bother them—Midnight so he could sleep, and Cobra so he could just be left the hell alone—but no… He just _had_ to be conscious. That had resulted in pointed looks from everyone else directed at Cobra himself, and comments about how he "needs to get out more" flying through the air.

Now, here he was, sitting at the end of the booth and glaring a hole through Jellal and Midnight's heads, silently hoping he could pull a _Scanners_ on them and make the fucking things explode. It hadn't worked so far, but Cobra was optimistic that his efforts would be rewarded… eventually. He was also hoping that Jellal contracted herpes from the redheaded tramp, and that Midnight died from a severe case of sleep apnea induced hypoxia. Something he may or may not aid by holding a pillow over his fucking face in his sleep. He was nothing, if not patient, when it came to ending their miserable fucking—

"Welcome to Devil's Den, boys. Can I get you anything?"

Cobra sneered and lifted his gaze to the whole goddamn reason they were here in the first place. Erza fucking Scarlet. He hadn't been paying much attention to the 'uniforms' the waitresses were wearing, but now he did. If her mind wasn't perpetually filled with terrifyingly perverse thoughts concerning both Jellal _and_ cake (simultaneously, mind you) then he might have been able to say she at least looked attractive in a pair of leather boyshorts and a matching corset. There were any number of comments he could have made about her looking like a dominatrix right then, but he held his tongue. If he started trading barbs with her, it would result in being forced to spend more time here or getting clobbered with that goddamn hammer again. Then again… If she hit him hard enough, he would get knocked out of the building. That was actually much more pleasant of a thought than it should have been.

"Good evening, Erza," Jellal said with a small quirk to his lips. "We'll need another round shortly."

Erza blushed at the smoldering look in those deep hazel eyes then glanced at Midnight, who was asleep on the table, and Cobra before looking back at Jellal. "I'm glad you've brought someone else with you this time, Jellal."

"Why w—" Jellal tried to ask in confusion only for his sentence to get cut off as the lights in the seating area and on the dance floor went out completely. He hadn't realized it while he was looking at Erza, but the dance floor had been cleared of the club's patrons and a stage had risen from the ground, giving their particular booth one of the best seats in the house, as it were. Just before the crowd could start to get concerned about the lack of lighting, the DJ's voice came blaring over the speakers.

"Alright, gentlemen. We've got a special treat for you all tonight. Let's get those jewels ready, and give it up for… Trixie Charmer!"

Cobra rolled his eye while the men in the club started hooting and hollering as the stage was backlit by a vibrant green light, giving everyone in the building the ability to see a cage hanging just below the rafters. _'Great, a fucking stripper,'_ he thought sourly as his gaze locked onto the silhouette of a woman with a huge rack and—although he was loathe to admit—well-rounded ass while she was dangling upside down from the topmost bars of the cage. He vowed then and there to kill the _shit_ out of Jellal and Midnight for putting him through this torture. The woman up there wasn't going to do a damn thing for him—just like pretty much every woman he came across—but he supposed he could sit and watch the poor wretch gyrate and flail about in what she assumed was a form of sensual dancing that got everyone's blood boiling with the need to fuck her senseless. Maybe he would be able to get a few good laughs out of it in the process, especially if she was doing shit like this out of sheer desperation to run away from her shitty life; those ones were his favorite to listen in on.

The cage started to descend toward the stage as the song slowly faded in, and Lucy took a deep breath to calm her nerves before she grabbed onto one of the vertical bars and slithered her way down to the floor. Why the club's owner had insisted that her stage name for the night was 'Trixie Charmer' was something she would never be able to guess at, but she supposed it had something to do with the song she had chosen to perform to. 'Trixie' because she was dancing, and he probably pulled that shit out of a hat; and 'Charmer' because snakes are toxic, and her job was to charm every single man here as though they were sitting in a basket just waiting for her to play a flute. Either that, or the guy just thought it sounded appealing.

Her legs glided effortlessly over the metal, and she knew that she was in full view of the audience when she was barely able to make out the countless catcalls of the lecherous little shits out there. She was going to kill Erza by the time this mission was done; thankfully, this was their last night in keeping an eye out for any sort of trouble that the club-owner had been afraid of happening. Which meant she would be getting the hell out of here soon, sitting alone in the hotel room she was sharing with Erza while the Requip mage got 'reacquainted' with her beau.

Because of how long it took for the cage to actually reach its destination of only a few feet above the stage, the DJ had luckily been able to duplicate the introductory instrumental. It also gave Lucy a little extra time to get herself upright. Using all of those gymnastic lessons her father had forced on her, plus the years of fights in Fairy Tail, and a tad bit of her imagination, Lucy tightened her grip on the bar with her hands and slowly unraveled her legs from around it. She bent one leg behind her, and then the other, and giggled softly when there were even louder cheers from the audience when she was almost completely parallel to the floor. Only a second later, her stilettoed feet touched the floor, and she pulled herself to stand just as the lyrics started.

 _Baby, can't you see_  
 _I'm calling_  
 _A guy like you_  
 _Should wear a warning_

Just as Lucy started dancing, tossing her hair from one side to the other while she swayed from side to side, she twirled around in search of the table Erza said she would be watching from with Jellal. She was fully supportive of her dear friend's quirky (but no less sweet) relationship with the guy, and it was part of the reason that she had agreed to go on this mission with Erza in the first place. Lucy had expected to see the two mages cuddled up to one another as they currently were, and even half expected the sight of Midnight as he feigned sleep by leaning his head back against the booth's cushion. What she _hadn't_ expected, or more specifically _who_ , was the one and only Cobra. With his single indigo eye boring into her while he watched her every move. There was no way to get around the peal of internal laughter over the irony of her song choice with a man who was quite literally toxic sitting in the audience, and Lucy decided then and there that this particular dance was going to be just for him. It was her last night at the club, after all, and she had a certain fondness for bad boys with scars.

 _It's dangerous;  
I'm fallin'_

Cobra's brain miraculously checked out for all of ten seconds when he saw just who was in that cage. Her guild mark was hidden, but there was no way he would forget the face of the blonde they had tried to erase from existence a few years back. Or those curves. And holy fucking hell, was she showing them off. First of all, he didn't think he'd ever found leather to be so goddamn appealing. From the collar around her neck to what hardly constituted as an outfit over her torso, even the cuffs around her wrists and her dangerously high heels; Lucy Heartfilia looked every bit like the perfect sex-crazed BDSM slave.

The leather collar that was tightly wrapped around her neck was attached to two vertical strips of leather in the front and back that ran down to the tops of her thighs, and were just barely wide enough to actually cover her nipples; a small O-Ring connecting the collar to the leather cuffs around her wrists by a thin chain. He couldn't bring himself to care about how her legs looked covered in the open mesh of her fishnet stockings, or how the definition in her muscles was accentuated by those heels that were adorned with dozens of metal spikes. No, what Cobra was stuck on was the fact that there were only six—yes, _six_ —strips of leather that were just a wide as the vertical ones, and running across her body. One over her breasts, one at her ribs, one cinching her already dangerously small waist, another just under her navel, one running over her hips, and the final strip barely covering the bottom of her ass. There was only one other piece to her outfit, and that was a little black g-string that did absolutely nothing to cover her, aside from the small triangle of fabric that kept her sex hidden from view.

 _There's no escape  
I can't wait  
I need a hit  
Baby, gimme it  
You're dangerous;  
I'm lovin' it_

Her movements screamed sensuality, lust, and the most carnal of desires. Cobra was pretty sure that a whole brothel of succubi would be taking notes on how to lure their next victims in from the way Lucy was dancing. While she wasn't moving in an overly sexual way, it was the undertone of it in the way she rotated her hips, dipping slightly while she swayed from one side to the other, that called to him. Because of Meredy, he'd been forced to actually listen to the original version of this particular song, and he couldn't help but appreciate the change of pace from that whiny, nasal voice. The use of both acoustic and electric guitars provided much more power than the piddly little violins ever could. This was dirty—downright fucking-in-a-train-station-bathroom-stall grungy—but damn if it wasn't doing the trick to get him worked up.

 _Too high  
Can't come down  
Losing my head  
Spinning 'round and 'round_

As the vocals switched from the raspy singer to the man screaming, the cage was suddenly bathed in red light from every angle, with occasional flashes of a white strobe light timed perfectly to the music. Lucy's go-go style dancing disappeared altogether, and Cobra was suddenly very aware of just how tight his pants had gotten when she slammed her hands against the bar and flipped her hair back. He had never thought he would be jealous of a piece of metal, but he definitely was when she leaned forward and pushed her chest between the bars of the cage. Every delectable curve of her body begged to be touched, and it seemed Lucy was making do with what was available when she treated one of the bars like a pole and started grinding on it, rolling her whole body as she slowly leaned back.

 _Do you feel me now?_

Lucy mouthed the spoken words while she looked right at Cobra, licking her lips sensually and watching as his eye widened only a fraction of an inch. Heat flooded her whole body at the thought of possibly surprising the Soul Listening mage. There was a very particular reason she had mouthed those words to him, and that was because she _wanted_ him to feel her. She wanted those rough hands running over her skin, to send shivers down his spine while she screamed in ecstasy as he plunged into her harder than should be humanly possible. Just the thought of her legs wrapped around his waist was enough to make her sex clench, forcing a startled and breathy gasp to spill from her.

 _With a taste of your lips,  
I'm on a ride  
You're toxic  
I'm slipping under_

Lucy jumped up onto one of the horizontal bars and continued dancing as though she was on solid ground, somehow managing to keep her balance even though she was only able to stand on the balls of her feet in those heels. As if by magic—and Cobra was willing to bet that was the case—the cage started to spin, giving everyone in the club an uninhibited view of the blonde bombshell while she swirled her hips erotically, dipping lower and lower until she was crouching on the bar. Her back arched as she came back into his immediate line of sight, and that perfect ass of hers was all he could focus on while she slowly rose to her feet.

 _With a taste of your poison paradise  
I'm addicted to you  
Don't you know that you're toxic  
And I love what you do  
Don't you know that you're toxic_

Lucy ran her hands across her body, feeling just how sweaty she had already gotten from dancing. Instead of being disgusted by it though, she realized that it would only make her skin glisten in the light. She spread her legs as she stood in the center of the cage and rolled her body while she essentially felt herself up, her breath hitching when she caught a glimpse of Cobra leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table. The look in his eye was hungry, utterly ravenous, and she could practically feel him devouring her from this distance. Her head tipped back and a seductive smile spread across her lips when her fingers danced over her breasts. She wasn't necessarily an exhibitionist, but the thought of that particularly perfect specimen of danger and sex-on-legs watching her like this was more than enough to get her going.

 _It's getting late  
To give you up  
I took a sip  
From my devil's cup_

Cobra took a moment to adjust himself before his brain fucking melted right out of his ears. _This_ was how a woman was supposed to dance. Every movement she made, every small roll of her hips had his cock twitching and excessive saliva collecting in his mouth. One hand tangled in her hair, the other sliding down her stomach to brush over the top of her panties, and he could swear he'd been able to hear her actually fucking moaning. He took a sip of his drink, and nearly choked to death when he saw what Lucy was doing as jewels fluttered onto the stage from random people in the crowd.

She stood on the horizontal bar again and spread her legs wide as she grabbed onto two of the vertical bars. A soft moan slipped from between her lips when her eyes locked onto Cobra's, lower lip pulled between her teeth, and Lucy finally kicked one leg forward to wrap it around the bar to her right. When her left leg followed suit, wrapping around the other bar and spreading herself wide open, Cobra thought he had died and gone to heaven. Surely some sad twit had made a mistake somewhere, because there was no way she was supposed to look so goddamn delicious, and especially not where a monster like himself—something he was still very proud to admit, much to Jellal's chagrin—could see her.

 _Slowly  
It's taking over me_

 _'Now **that** is some goddamn muscle control,'_ he thought when Lucy loosened her grip on the bars with her hands and began dancing even more erotically—if that was even possible. The cage continued spinning around, and Cobra just couldn't even bring himself to care if everyone in the whole building saw how fucking hard he was as he shifted in his seat. The cage finally came to a stop when she was facing him again, and he definitely heard a moan from her when she flipped her hair back over her head and her eyes locked onto his again. He watched as she reached up, the dainty chains connecting her wrists to her collar tinkling slightly as her chest moved in an isolated circle that was completely independent of her undulating hips, and pulled a— _'That is **not** a fucking whip... Oh god, she's... Fuck me, that's hot as hell...'_

 _Too high  
Can't come down  
It's in the air  
And it's all around  
Can you feel me now?_

Lucy's eyes rolled back while she rubbed her leather whip over her body, and she very intentionally set it between her teeth when she looked back at Cobra, her lips pulled back in a snarl that matched the countless ones she had seen at the guild from the other Dragon Slayers. She couldn't be sure, but she almost thought she saw him whisper the word 'fuck' as the cage lowered to the stage completely and she slid out of it. She was definitely enjoying this much more than she had anticipated, but it was entirely due to the deadliest member of the audience that was caught in her gaze. What's a woman to do when there's such an immense amount of inspiration right before her eyes? Dance her goddamn tits off just for him, and hope with everything she was worth that she would get to suck all that poison right out of him... That's what.

 _With a taste of your lips  
I'm on a ride_

There were rounds of gasps in the crowd when Lucy began lashing out with her whip in time with the music, the cracks of it rousing Midnight completely in an instant. Cobra could understand his trepidation, and normally would have wanted her head on a platter for using the fucking thing in general—even as a prop—but any of his usual hatred for that leather fiend flew out the window when a cloud of artificial purple fog started rising from the stage. Each lash cut through the fog, her eyes burning into him as she danced closer to the edge of the stage. Closer to where he was sitting.

 _You're toxic  
I'm slipping under  
With a taste of your poison paradise_

Lashes in quick succession that only someone who was wholly familiar with the weapon could have accomplished whirled around her. Violent cracks of the whip danced along the ground and even punctuated the stronger beats of the song by reaching back to snap at the bars of the cage with an odd metallic twang. Cobra smirked when one of the bastards off to the side tried to get her attention by making a grab for her, only for her to snap her whip and wrap it around his hand. It looked as though it took no effort on her part when Lucy flicked her wrist and bashed the guy's face into the stage, and Cobra was finding it harder and harder to stay where he was when he realized that she still hadn't taken her eyes off of him. _'That… was so fucking sexy…'_ he thought absently.

Her hips and breasts swayed so perfectly, so tantalizingly, whispering so many promises of pleasure that he suddenly found his mouth had gone dry. The innocence her normal appearance afforded her—even while wearing mini-skirts and crop-tops—had melted away to reveal a sultry woman that was hellbent on bringing men to their knees. The errant thought that she could dominate him anytime she wanted caught Cobra off guard, but any qualms he might have had with it disappeared when he took in just how fucking edible she looked covered in what he could easily interpret as a poisoned mist. It coiled around her, caressed every sensual curve of her body as though it was sentient and giving in to the spell she seemed to have cast on him. The fact that he had the ability to create a mist just like this one wasn't lost on him, and if it wouldn't also potentially kill Lucy, he would have already loosed his noxious roar into the building just so he could have her all to himself.

With all the grace of a prima ballerina, Lucy stepped from the stage directly onto the table that was acting as the only barrier keeping Cobra from ripping away the small bit of fabric between her legs and ravaging her. And the saucy little minx seemed to fucking know just what level of insanity she had brought him to, if that little pull at the corner of her lips was any indication. What he hadn't been expecting, however, was for her attention to suddenly divert to Midnight who was staring at her with wide eyes that finally flashed with recognition.

 _I'm addicted to you  
Don't you know that you're toxic_

Lucy gave Midnight a seductive grin while she raised her hands in the air, her whip trailing limply down between her breasts and lazily circling around her on the table, her legs parted just enough that every roll of her hips was that much more alluring. It wasn't that she wanted to jump the narcoleptic guy's bones, but this was just more of a tease for Cobra who was now gifted with an uninhibited view of her ass while she knelt down and arched her back. She was giving the Poison Slayer the perfect opportunity to picture just what she would look like bent over in front of him, with no worries whatsoever that he would be caught ogling her. Lucy leaned forward, her breath quickening when she heard Cobra shifting behind her, and she slowly started crawling toward Midnight. Her grin only widened when his attention was drawn to the side just a little—to Cobra—when a barely audible growl sounded in the air.

 _And I love what you do  
Don't you know that you're toxic_

Cobra's breath died in his throat when Lucy turned to look at him over her shoulder. Her golden hair slowly slipped over her shoulder, her pouty little lips begged to be ravaged by him, and her eyes flashed with so much lust that he felt his body actually trembling in response. If it wasn't for the fact that she slowly ran her tongue over the whip, or the way her body contorted as she arched back and laid herself out across the table, then what she was thinking about sure as hell put the nail in his coffin concerning where his night was going. Image after image of what her mind conjured up had his jaw slowly dropping open without him even realizing it. Every single thought that consumed her had Cobra starring as the main attraction.

Flashes of every position imaginable while he pounded into her naked, quivering body.

Bound and gagged, laid out across this very table.

Panties shredded as she was pinned to a dirty alley wall.

Him snarling wildly as he slammed into her, and her own screams echoing through the air while she clawed at his back.

Her back arched on the table in front of him, and in her head, Lucy's back arched as his mouth lowered to her sex.

As it turns out, Lucy's mind was a vivid buffet of imagery, with not only pictures swirling in the technicolor collage of lust, but sounds and sensations as well. The duality of that moment for him—in both mentally experiencing just what she was thinking about, and watching how she expertly snapped her whip out toward the stage when the fog threatened to obscure her from view without breaking eye contact with him—sent shivers down his spine. He had never, in all his life, seen or heard someone so goddamn sexy. And he was more than ready to sink into the delicious woman before him.

 _With a taste of your lips  
I'm on a ride  
You're toxic  
I'm slipping under_

Lucy had him. Hook, line, and sinker. She rolled over onto her hands and knees and crawled across the table until she was directly in front of the barely breathing Poison Slayer. She pulled his half-empty glass from between his hands, and lifted it to her lips, pouring the whiskey and Windex concoction into her mouth before looking at him once more. She knew how much of the toxic chemical was in his drink to begin with, along with the fact that she could very easily be poisoned by the chemicals soaking into her bloodstream through her mouth, but it was already halfway gone by the time she'd reached the table, so there wasn't too much Windex actually left by that point. It definitely tasted disgusting, but at least the whiskey helped to mask some of it. Her legs spread even wider as she leaned over him, his head tipping back to keep their eyes locked.

One slender digit lightly pushed his chin down, and Cobra instantly complied when he realized just what she was about to do. Her lips parted only an inch above his own, and he shivered when he tasted her mixed with his mildly poisonous drink as it poured into his mouth. While he normally preferred the bitter and harsh bite of his drinks, Lucy was the most sinfully sweet mixture of sex and candy that he thoroughly enjoyed how smooth it was. He couldn't understand how she had been able to even handle it without at least cringing, but more fucking power to her for sucking it up just to get him even more riled up. Her soul purred, the predator within her swishing its tail languidly while she kept him trapped in her gaze and tenderly closed his mouth for him with another small bit of pressure on his chin. As her tongue darted out to lick her lips, Cobra gulped the liquid down and found himself getting lost in her gaze. _'Her eyes,'_ he thought, _'They're like acid rain...'_

 _With a taste of your poison paradise  
I'm addicted to you  
Don't you know that you're toxic_

He could feel her eating away at him, those gorgeous brown eyes that instantly brought about the mental picture of nitrogen dioxide swirling in the air and searing through the walls he had erected to keep himself closed off from the world. Just her _eyes_ were leaving him feeling utterly bare, but there was some small glimmer of gentility in them that left him at ease with what she was doing. There wasn't just the intense hunger in her gaze that he knew was mirroring his own, but softness and some fucked up sense of understanding in them as well. Maybe Lucy didn't realize just what she was capable of... Then again, considering the fact that she was in the process of pulling him to his feet by his wrists that were bound with her whip—a feat she shouldn't have been able to accomplish with his aversion to anything wrapping around his wrists—maybe the blonde knew _exactly_ what the hell she could do with just a look... At least where he was concerned…

 _Taste of your lips  
I'm on a ride  
You're toxic  
I'm slipping under_

Lucy pulled on the whip slightly, and grinned when Cobra jumped up onto the table with her. The crowd let out more catcalls as she winked at him and slowly licked her lips, taking slow steps backwards while she led him onto the stage. The rest of the table's occupants were torn between gaping at Lucy's seduction techniques and gaping at Cobra's uncharacteristic obedience. Well, the men were, at least. For her part, Erza was simply smiling triumphantly.

"Erza, you never told me that Lucy used another type of magic," Jellal said slowly as he watched Cobra willingly walk into the cage. His single eye never left Lucy's face, even when she tossed the handle of the whip up to loop over the top bar of the cage, then yanked it down until his arms were stretched taut over his head.

"What do you mean?" Erza asked.

Midnight cleared his throat, his crimson eyes widening as Lucy pressed her back to Cobra's chest and started grinding on him. "Hypnotism, maybe?" he shakily supplied, watching as Lucy's eyes fluttered closed as her hips swirled around. "Cobra would never... _let_ someone tie him up..."

Erza chuckled and took a small sip of the beer Jellal had completely forgotten about. "She only uses Celestial magic, boys."

 _With a taste of your poison paradise  
I'm addicted to you  
Don't you know that you're toxic_

"Then how the hell—Oh... Wow..." Midnight whispered incredulously. Lucy leaned her head back on Cobra's shoulder, and he actually responded by tilting his head down and running his nose along her neck, his eye closing while he very clearly pressed himself closer to the blonde that had ensnared him. There was a small quirk to Cobra's lips when his mouth opened to let his teeth drag over her glistening skin. If that wasn't enough, Lucy had quickly whirled around and hooked one leg over Cobra's hip, pulling on the whip when he started to struggle slightly. Her free hand slid up from his hip to his jaw, then roughly tangled in his hair while she rolled her body against him, and Midnight wondered just what the hell Lucy had done to his old friend. Cobra snarled when she pulled on the whip again, but all Lucy did was smile.

"Seriously..." Jellal added. He had never imagined that he would see this particular pair anywhere near one another, not willingly at least. It was already surprising to see the sweet blonde dancing as though this was her main vocation, and not a proud mage of Fairy Tail. But to see Cobra—someone that he had assumed was asexual simply because he hated fucking _everything_ in existence—actually falling victim to the apparent spell Lucy had cast over the crowd was something Jellal just couldn't assimilate. Not with everything he knew about the crusty bastard. So, it seemed the only logical option was that Lucy had used some secondary magic (maybe even a magic item of some sort) to bend the pointy-eared Slayer to her will.

"M-Mind control…?" Midnight stuttered, actually leaning forward in his seat as his eyes bugged out of his head. Lucy was obviously insane. Totally and completely bonkers. Midnight quickly rubbed his eyes, not caring in the least if the makeup he was wearing—not that he would ever admit to wearing it—smudged when Lucy quite literally jumped and wrapped her legs around Cobra's waist. Even while she hugged herself to him using only her legs and one hand in his hair for leverage, the psychopath was still… Fucking… Dancing. How she was able to manage any sort of rotation in her hips was beyond him, but from where they were sitting (and most likely from any angle in the building) the pair in the cage looked as though they were fucking right in front of everyone.

 _And I love what you do,  
Don't you know that you're toxic_

As the last two lines of the song rang out into the club, there was a loud uproar of cheers and wolf whistles when Lucy crashed her lips to Cobra's. Midnight and Jellal practically had their jaws on the floor when they saw just how intensely Cobra was responding to the kiss, and their heads nearly exploded when the lights faded into utter darkness again with the ending instrumental only for a loud feminine moan to ring out through the building before it was completely cut off.

When the lights finally came back on, the cage, its two sex-crazed and screw-loose occupants, and the stage itself were nowhere in sight. The only sign that Lucy and Cobra had been there at all was the fading purple fog that filtered through the building. Before either of the men at the table could jump into action—because they were _both_ always making mountains out of mole hills in their own way when it came to thinking some evil plot was afoot—Erza cleared her throat and said, "They will be fine. More than fine if that little bit of improvisation on the track by her is anything to go by."

"I still don't get it," Midnight whispered in wonder as he stared at the spot on the floor where the cage had once been. "How did she do it?"

"I'm telling you, it has to be magic. Maybe someone from one of Zeref's cults—" Jellal started, only to sigh heavily when Erza placed her hand over his mouth.

"The only magic Lucy was using was purely chromosomal," Erza said proudly. "She has done well."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Midnight nearly shouted as the normal music for the club started back up and the dancers returned to the floor.

"An illusion, maybe something with mind control, or a trigger of some sort," Jellal supplied, furrowing his brow. "There has to be an explanation for his behavior."

Erza sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. "Is it so difficult to believe that he's simply attracted to her?"

" _Cobra_?!" they shouted in unison.

Erza scowled at the two, watching as Jellal gulped and Midnight somehow paled even further than his ghostly white complexion should have allowed. "Are you implying that Lucy is incapable of seducing a man?"

"N-No!" Midnight hurriedly said. "Just, Cobra hates _everything._ I should know, I've been his friend for years, and he _still_ tries to kill me on a weekly basis… Usually for things that happened at least five years ago."

"What he said," Jellal quickly added. "Lucy's beautiful, Erza. It's just… This is _Cobra_."

Erza seemed to consider their words for a moment, then nodded. "I see. Well, I will clear this up for you. Lucy and Cobra are—" There was a lull in the music for only a moment, and a muffled feminine moan could just barely be heard over the din of the club's occupants.

* * *

As soon as the cage finished its descent into the basement, with the trap door that acted as the dance floor closing above them silently, Cobra growled and shook his wrists free of the whip's hold as he pulled away from Lucy's lips. They were both breathing heavily already, and the way she had been rubbing all over him like a cat in fucking heat had torn the Poison Slayer to shreds until he was focused on one thing: just how fucking good she was going to feel wrapped around him. His hands instantly shot down and roughly palmed her mostly bare ass, and Cobra lunged forward until Lucy's back slammed into the bars of the cage. Not even bothering with words at that point, Cobra descended on her already kiss-swollen lips with a feral growl, barely seeing the flash of excitement in her eyes.

Lucy's moans were swallowed by him, completely devoured right along with any sense of foreplay as his tongue dove back into her mouth. Hell, there had been enough foreplay for the both of them for last few minutes while she was dancing. Now, all she wanted was to feel him filling her to the brim and slamming into her with reckless abandon. She whimpered when she tried to rock her hips against him again, to feel that thick arousal of his grinding against her already dripping slit, and his hands tightened on her ass to hold her still. Her hands ran down from his hair to the back of his neck, and she cried out in surprise when he pulled her away from himself, flipped her around, and slammed her chest against one of the bars. How he'd managed to pull it off was beyond her, but she couldn't care less about him possibly breaking any laws of physics—or the fact that her sternum was going to have a lovely bruise from the impact—when he draped her legs over the horizontal bar and growled right in her ear.

Cobra felt like he'd waited long enough, and quickly got his pants undone and pushed the constricting fabric down to mid-thigh along with his boxers. He growled low in his throat as he pulled her panties to the side, a wicked grin pulling at his lips when Lucy moaned at just the thought of him taking her so roughly. Only one stroke of his aching shaft against over her sex, and he let out a long groan when he realized just how fucking drenched she was. Without any other warning, he lined himself up and rammed in to the hilt, grinning when Lucy screamed. He hissed and let out a shaky breath when he felt just how tightly she was gripping him, then moved forward until her body was pressed flush against the bar. "Ride my dick, you little fucking tease," he whispered in her ear as his hands slid over the strips of leather running across her body to roughly palm her breasts.

Her eyes widened when Cobra moved the cross-sections of leather away from her nipples, and cried out as he pulled and pinched the pink buds. She put her hands to the bar and raised herself up until he was sitting at her entrance again, then slammed back down with a loud moan. He was so thick, she felt like she was going to be torn in half, but she kept going. Faster. Harder. His moans and growls filled the air around them, mixing with her own sounds of pure pleasure and becoming the sweetest symphony she'd ever heard. She could feel his breath across the back of her neck, his lips and teeth biting into her shoulders almost hard enough to break the skin, and she was desperate for more.

Cobra snarled as his hands shot down to her inner thighs, pulling them further apart as he started meeting her thrust for thrust. The surprised whimper Lucy let loose was music to his ears as he pressed her sex to the vertical bar. "Don't stop," he moaned. "Rub your pussy all over that fucking metal."

Lucy's eyes rolled back, and one of her hands reached behind her to tangle in his hair while she gave in to his demand. No way in hell was she going to deny the beast she had just let loose in him. "Fuck," she moaned loudly with the first pass of her clit over the bar, igniting a fire in her veins that had her rolling her hips back into him. Never in a million years had a piece of metal felt so fucking good, and with the way her body was arching of its own accord, Lucy was becoming more and more breathless. The air was stifling, thick with their heaving breaths and filled with the scent of sweat and sex.

" _Ohhh_ … Hell yeah," Cobra moaned, "You're so fucking wet, Lucy. Just sliding all over my dick." He grunted as her walls rippled around him, and his hips surged forward, pushing her just a little higher on the bar. When Lucy moan, louder than before, he let out another low growl and nipped harshly at her neck. "You want it harder?"

"Y-Yes!" Lucy whimpered, her eyes clamping shut as he started pounding into her relentlessly, forcing her sex to run over the metal bar with each powerful thrust. "Yes! God, _yes_!" This was what she had been aching for since she saw him. Every inch of her body was burning with desire, pleasure washing over her in violent waves as he pounded into her core, seeping into her with every sound he made. Every erotic word that passed his lips was dripping with desire, something that she was starting to consider a poison all on its own. His voice made her shiver, and had her nerves lighting up all at once. His breath as it fanned over her already sensitive flesh had her head swimming. Maybe this was what it felt like to be poisoned to death, with the exception of excruciating pain. The toxic man she had been dancing for was definitely going to kill her, she was sure of it. Especially when her body tightened up around him and he only started moving faster.

"Fuck, you're getting so tight," Cobra groaned. "C'mon. Show me just how tight you can ge—Holy _fuck_!" Cobra snarled as Lucy's head flew back and her first orgasm ripped through her, her sex clamping down on him and forcing his eye to roll back. While she was riding that high, he pulled her ass back and wrapped one hand around her chin. He forced her head to tilt up, his hips still smacking roughly against her ass. "Scream for me. I want this whole fucking club to hear you," he groaned.

Lucy's back arched when he forced her head back even further, her eyes shooting open when he shifted slightly and started rubbing against what had to be the most amazing sweet spot she'd ever felt. She shivered and moaned as Cobra's grip on her chin tightened, and her body rippled with pleasure when he smacked her ass with a terrifying growl.

He heard her soul screaming in ecstasy, and knew that he needed to get that same sound out of her lips. The smack to her ass had just happened in the heat of the moment—and it wasn't something he normally would have done—but the way she responded with a roll of her hips was more than enough for him to do it again. And again. "I can hear it inside you," he growled. Another hit to her ass. He rolled his hips, and smacked her again, hissing when her sex tightened around him while she whimpered. "Let it out." He would never have pegged Lucy as one for spanking, but Cobra wasn't going to complain. Especially not when she started picturing him taking a paddle to her ass until it was red and raw, then fucking her right into oblivion. "Oh, I'll take more than a fucking paddle to you…"

One last rough smack to her already pink flesh had Lucy screaming just like he wanted. The bass of the music above them was thumping away, drowning out any of the noises they made. She didn't want people to hear her, to know what she sounded like while getting the brains fucked right out of her, but they wouldn't be able to with how loud that music was. That little bit of information made Lucy let loose completely. And the more vocal she was, the more Cobra seemed to enjoy it. His voice got lower, vibrating across her skin and sending jolt after jolt of pleasure skimming over her body. " _More,_ " she drawled, tightening her grip on the bar and rolling her hips into him every time he was nestled deeply in her sex.

He couldn't remember ever hearing someone so damn sexy in all his life. Every sound in her soul was washing over him, filling him to the brim with more lust than he'd ever known possible. With an arm around her waist, Cobra yanked her away from the side of the cage and spun around, then dropped to the ground and laid himself out over her. Her sex rippled around him, her ass lifting into his hips while she desperately clawed at the floor of the cage. As he stared down at the perfectly flared hips that greedily pushed back against him, he unconsciously bared his teeth and gripped what was definitely his favorite part of her body, his fingers digging into the supple flesh of her ass and helping her move more forcefully over his shaft. "You're so fucking sexy…" He buried himself as deeply as possible and rocked his hips into her, pulling a slew of husky curses from the blonde that only made him more ravenous. "Shit, just hearing you is gonna make me cum."

Lucy whimpered as his hands smoothed over her sides and up to her shoulders. The touch was so tender, almost reverent, and completely at odds with how he was slamming into her again. The growl that rumbled through his chest as he pressed himself flush against her back had Lucy gasping for air, stalling the breath in her lungs at just how low and wild it was. One hand slid gently up the column of her throat, and she turned her head to the side only to have him softly press his lips to hers. It was almost as though the upper and lower halves of his body were completely separate entities—one gentle and caring. , the other rough and domineering. His harsh breaths puffed out across her face, and when she opened her eyes again, everything faded into the background. All she could see was that deep purple eye of his, the scar over his other eye. Sweaty maroon hair that was falling limply over his forehead. Tan skin that she secretly envied. Even if he had never gotten that lacrima implanted in him, Lucy was still utterly intoxicated by his mere presence. It had always been that way for her though, ever since she first saw him all those years ago. Cobra had poisoned her mind, making it impossible for her to think of anyone else.

"You're the toxic one," he whispered, nipping lightly at her lips. "Dancing like that, making me so fucking hard I thought I'd blow right there." His other hand slid back down, moving slowly around her waist and finally down to circle her clit. "I want your poison. It smells so fucking good."

"Take it all." Lucy moaned against his lips when he descended on them once more, her own parting hungrily to let him devour her any way he wanted. _'God, he can have whatever he wants…'_ She mourned the loss of his heat when he completely pulled away from her for only a moment before Cobra rolled her over onto her back and dove down again. She smiled as he pushed back into her, his hips snapping slower, although with much more power than before.

As if Lucy had read his mind, Cobra watched as her hands shot up to unbutton his shirt. He ached to feel all of that silky skin of hers gliding against him. As soon as she was finished, he was frantically pulling away the fabric of his outer shirt while Lucy reached down to pull the hems of his other two shirts up and off of him. He groaned when she greedily massaged his bare chest, and lowered his lips to hers just as her hands slithered around to his back.

Lucy's earlier thought of liking bad boys with scars returned when she felt the criss-crossed pattern of raised scar tissue all along Cobra's back. He was definitely the epitome of that particularly rebellious desire of hers, and she couldn't have been happier that he would even let her touch them in the first place.

Cobra lifted his head and gave her a wicked grin. "Bad boys with scars, huh?" Lucy nodded quickly, leaning up to run her tongue across his jaw and nipping at his ear. His hips surged forward, a low groan bubbling up in his throat, when she kept teasing the gold ring in his earlobe with her tongue and teeth. "Shit, your mouth is fucking magical."

"Just wait... _Mmm_... Until it's on your cock later," Lucy rasped in his ear. She gasped when his hand tangled in her hair and he yanked her head back to stare into her eyes. Some emotion she had never seen before passed over his face, leaving her confused and somehow hornier than before.

"Because you're planning on sucking the poison right out of me?" Cobra asked, groaning loudly as Lucy's legs locked around his hips. "Heard your ass loud and fucking clear."

"I want it... Oh god... N-now..." Lucy whimpered. Her face scrunched up, the pitch and volume of her moans increasing as pleasure coursed through her more insistently. She was burning from within, in a way that no fire could ever attempt to accomplish like all of those romance novels insisted was the case. No, definitely not with Cobra. "Please... P-Please poison me..." She leaned up and ran her tongue over a drop of sweat that was sliding down Cobra's chest, her breath stuttering when she tasted the deliciously bitter and masculine tinge to the salty liquid. "You taste… _Nngghh_ … So good… I want more…"

"Fuck," Cobra growled, picking up in speed once again when Lucy started sucking on the skin just below his collarbone. "God, Lucy... Y-You're... Oh, _fuck_..." No matter how much he enjoyed hearing just what his words could do to her, there was no way for him to keep speaking with how she began writhing beneath him. Every roll of her hips to meet him more urgently pushed him closer and closer to the edge. The way she curled into him while her sex fluttered around his hardening shaft was nearly more than he could bear. "Y-Yes… Fuck, yes…" he panted.

What finally did him in though was something he hadn't expected in the least. Her eyes locked with his, drawing him right back in like they had done while she was kneeling on the table. A song that was uniquely hers that he had never heard before belted out from her soul as though it had been trapped for far too long and it was refusing to be shackled any longer. He could hear her heart pounding in her chest in time with his own, smelled just how close she was to cumming. Everything was drowned out though, until only Lucy existed. Only that new song in her soul that was just for him. His eye widened when an image popped up in her mind—something he hadn't expected to ever see—and then he heard just how fucking quickly she accepted it. How much she wanted it to happen. Just when it burrowed itself in his memory, and he felt his own soul echoing a deeper harmony with her in every way, his balls drew up and he surged forward one last time before he finally spilled over, dragging Lucy kicking and screaming with him.

Lucy's scream of ecstasy echoed through the room as Cobra lowered his head and roughly bit into her shoulder, her flesh popping against his teeth and searing heat flooding her veins. Her eyes watered and her grip around his back tightened while she tried to fight against the sudden pain, realizing a little too late that his poison had actually leaked into her. It surged violently through her body, causing her moans of pleasure to be tinged with agonized whimpers. She felt sick to her stomach as her skin began tingling in a way that had nothing to do with her spasming sex.

Cobra groaned and rocked his hips slowly as pulse after pulse of his release filled her. At the first hint of saltwater in the air, he lifted his hand and pressed her mouth to his shoulder. When her lips stayed clamped shut, he growled and bit down just a little harder. No way in hell was he about to suck his poison out of her. Her mouth opened on a gasp, and he forced her lips to his flesh, growling his approval when she bit down as hard as she could.

His blood washed into her mouth, nearly gagging her as it burnt her tongue. Lucy tried to pull away from him to spit it out, but Cobra's grip on her hair tightened and held her in place. She was hurting everywhere, her nerves firing off and forcing her body to lock up. She sucked in shallow breaths through her nose, each one coming quicker than the last as her nails dug into Cobra's back. She screamed against his shoulder when his teeth dug further into her, another burst of poison washing through her faster than the last. The pain from his toxic bite was starting to blur her vision, and as more of that burning crimson liquid filled her mouth, Lucy reflexively swallowed. Just that first mouthful had the fire burning her from within swirling into a raging inferno as tears trickled down the sides of her face.

Cobra growled and sent more poison into her, his grip on her head loosening just a little so he could run his fingers through her hair. Her tongue brushed over his skin when she swallowed again, and a soft purr began rumbling in his chest when her nails finally released their death grip on his back.

Lucy whimpered, the pain of his poison in her finally fading with each subsequent gulp she took. Of course Cobra would be his own fucking antivenin if he wasn't going to suck out the poison, but the realization of just what he had done had her hands running tenderly over the scars on his back again and again. She bit down harder with a long moan, her eyes rolling back when the rumbling in his chest intensified.

Cobra groaned softly, finally unlocking his jaw and tenderly running his tongue across the wound he'd left on Lucy's shoulder. "Shit, Lucy," he whispered when she suddenly released his shoulder, "That feels fucking amazing." A slow chuckle left him when her tongue tentatively brushed over his skin, and he lightly kissed his way up to her ear, following the deep purple veins that began branching out across her skin.

Lucy's eyes opened when he slowly lowered her head to the floor. With a small pout, she reached up and flicked the tip of his pointed ear, quickly gaining the obviously distracted Slayer's attention. When Cobra lifted his head to look at her, Lucy's pout melted into a soft smile. "I missed you too, Erik," she whispered sweetly.

"Damn right you fucking missed me," Cobra answered with a grin. "Where else are you gonna get that pretty little brain of yours fucked into oblivion?"

"Prostitutes," Lucy deadpanned. When Cobra rolled his eye, Lucy ran her nose along his jaw. "Also, you're an asshole."

"I've been that way for years, you know that."

"Yes, and that's part of your charm," Lucy giggled. "But you could have told me you were planning on marking me tonight, you one-eyed bastard."

"I wasn't." Cobra looked down at the bite he'd left on her shoulder, the mark he'd left already having set itself under her skin, and a feral and wholly possessive grin spread across his face. "You said you wanted my poison. Figured I'd give it to you."

"That was a euphemism for your cum, dumbass."

"You're the dumbass who decided to fall in love with me _while_ I was fucking you. And then, right fucking afterwards, that you wanted to be my mate more than anything. How could I say no to that?" Cobra watched as Lucy's jaw dropped open in shock, and began laughing when even her thoughts started sputtering to find a response.

"I-I never said—" Lucy finally stuttered only to be cut off when his lips closed over hers.

"No need to say it. Your soul went all fucking Julie Andrews, singing about hills being alive and shit. Turned into a goddamn musical, which… Oddly enough… Was hot as fuck."

"It did not..."

Cobra gave Lucy a pointed look and whispered, "You do realize I can actually _see_ the shit that goes on in there, right? It's like one huge pop culture reference system mixed with a whole goddamn library. You're confusing as fuck, but that's what I love about you."

"You... What...?" Lucy whispered incredulously, her eyes widening when Cobra just chuckled again and brushed her hair from her face as he kissed her shoulder.

"I think dating for a whole year before telling you is long enough," Cobra answered softly. "I love you. I figured I'd wait until you got there too before I said anything. Besides, do you really think I would have marked you if I didn't love you?"

Lucy rolled her eyes and laughed while she traced lazy circles on his back. "I love you too. Even if you're a lunatic."

"Yeah, whatever you say... _Trixie_..." Cobra turned his head and caught Lucy's hand between his teeth when she tried to smack him in the head. He lightly sucked on the small bit of skin, humming in contentment when he could actually taste his own poison in her pores.

Lucy sighed in resignation and then laughed softly. "Guess I got a new nickname, huh?" she whispered.

He let her hand go and turned so he could see the light blush on her cheeks. "Yep, but only when you're dancing for _me_."

Lucy's blush darkened and she sifted her fingers through his damp hair, pulling him down into a soft kiss. "If it's any consolation," she whispered against his lips, "Now Jellal won't have any reason to drag you away to some stupid club because he's gonna go visit with Erza."

"That obvious, huh?" Cobra chuckled.

"Nah, I just know you." Lucy paused for a moment, then whispered, "Pretty sure they've all figured out we're together, though."

"Or they think I killed you."

"Mmm, nope. Erza obviously figured it out," Lucy replied. "I'm assuming that's why she dragged me along with her on this mission."

"Then explain how the hell I didn't hear that when she came to the table."

"Because you were too busy plotting all the ways you were going to slaughter Jellal and Midnight?" Lucy giggled when a rarely seen pout crossed the usually scowling face of her boyfriend—well, mate now, she supposed—and added, "It's alright. I was plotting Erza's demise while I was hanging in the cage. She could have at least told me she was planning on getting you to come out here."

"How'd she figure it out?" Cobra asked. "I thought you were waiting to tell everyone."

Lucy blushed again, then said, "Master, probably. I umm… I told him I was leaving the guild soon."

Cobra blinked once. Twice. Then listened in on what Lucy was thinking about, on her memory of what the meeting with the pervy geezer was about. "You're… You're leaving to… be with me?" he whispered.

"Yeah… I'm tired of missing you all the time, and only seeing you every few months _if we're lucky_. I don't know how Erza can do it, but I sure as hell can't."

"But, I thought you Fairies are all one big happy family…" Cobra said. How had he missed all of this? Listening in on what people were trying to keep hidden was his forte. So, just fucking _how_ did it manage to slip by him that Lucy was already thinking about leaving the place she called home to be with a monster like him? Aside from the fact that he'd just marked her on the fly, which was something he already knew he wouldn't regret, and they were bound together for life, she—

"Yes, we are," Lucy said softly as her fingers lightly traced the scar over his eye. "But, sometimes you have to move on from the comfort of your family to be happy. I'll always be a Fairy Tail mage at heart, and they'll never stop being my family just because I'm not in the guild. I want to be with you, Erik. That's all that matters to me."

"You…" Cobra whispered softly, "Are an absolute angel, y'know that?"

Lucy giggled and shook her head. "No, _I'm_ a snake charmer. Sorano's an angel."

"She's a fucking devil in a swan costume."

"I thought Midnight was the devil…"

"No, he's a makeup wearing demon."

"You told me Meredy's a demon, just like Mira with all of her crazy shipping schemes."

"Okay, yeah..." Cobra conceded, "She's a demon. But Midnight's a bastard."

"But, you're always calling Sawyer a bastard…"

"Nope, Sawyer's a raging asshole."

"That's what you always say about Jellal."

"God, don't even get me fucking _started_ on that tattooed blue waffle," Cobra groaned. After a moment, he narrowed his eye at Lucy and said, "You forgot Richard."

"No, I didn't," Lucy giggled. "We _both_ know he's the Koolaid Man."

Cobra dropped his head to her shoulder and laughed hysterically as he started to withdraw his spent member from her sex. "I fucking love you, Trixie."

With a wide grin, Lucy locked her heels around his hips and pushed him back in. She moaned softly when he growled and rocked his hips into her, and the only response she could come up with was a breathy, "Oh, yeah…"

* * *

 **That's all for Day 1! Figured I'd start it off with some smut for you all to enjoy!**

 **Now, there are several different forms of language, and anyone who has read more than one of my stories has probably figured out that my favorite form of communication is through music—hence my penchant for writing songfics. Whether it's just instrumentation, lyrics, or a combination, music is a wonderful medium for communication and a language all on its own. The addition of dance in this particular story is just another form of expression. Then of course, there's the things Cobra likes to say while doing the dos… *shifty eyes***

 **This story was originally going to be used for Day 4 (Glitter), and was a potential option for Day 2 (Caged), but I decided to get crazy with the glitter on what was originally my Language fic, and transferred this one to Language. Yay for confusing ideas!**

 ** _Warning!_** **You should NEVER EVER EVER attempt to suck poison from a wound, _or_ pour anything that's poisonous into your mouth (like Windex mixed with whiskey). The inner lining of your mouth is permeable, which means it will soak the chemicals into your bloodstream and cause all kinds of horrible side effects.**  
-Now, concerning Lucy doing this in the story… 2 ounces of Windex can cause drunk-like symptoms in a person, though it takes 14 ounces to kill you. Doesn't mean you're not getting irreversible damage done to your internal organs (which is a real danger after all the beatings Lucy has taken), but you might be fine with this small amount. However! If Cobra's glass holds a standard 3 fingers (about 1 ounce per finger)—and it's a 2:1 whiskey to Windex ratio—that was half empty... It could stand to reason that there wasn't enough to really soak in and cause any harmful effects by the time Cobra bites her at the end.  
-A _huge_ thanks to _Dragon'sHost_ for pointing this out when she read the draft! I never even considered it being an issue, but I'm glad that someone saw it before I posted!

 ** _Tomorrow's Prompt_**

 ** _Day 2: Caged._**

 **So… Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys!**

 **~~GemNika.**


	3. Lock and Key

**I'd like to apologize to my readers.**

 _ **This story is currently unavailable.**_

Many of you are aware that CoLu Week 2017 is quickly approaching. In preparation for this, I've decided to consolidate some stories that began in 2015 and were continued in 2016. For this reason, those particular stories have been taken down for editing. This chapter is currently under revision, and it will be reposted in a separate story that contains all chapters for that particular universe.

Once the revisions are complete and the new stories are posted, this page will be replaced with a redirect filler page that has the name of the story in which you can find the revamped chapter.

If all goes well, this will be done by August 2017, before CoLu Week starts this year.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I just really want to make it easier for those of you who end up re-reading these stories, that way you're not forced to click all over the place just to read one story.

~~GemNika.


	4. Beauty and the Beast

**I'd like to apologize to my readers.**

 _ **This story has been moved to a separate entry on FFnet.**_

You can find the new story entry on my FFnet page under the title: "Who Says Fairy Tales Are Normal?"

Although links don't work on this godforsaken site, here's the URL if you want to go that route instead. Just remove the spaces that are placed after the dots and slashes. Oh my god, I hate how the formatting is on this site.

 _(fanfiction dot net) /s/ 12556375/ 1/ Who-Says-Fairy-Tales-Are-Normal_

Sorry for the inconvenience. I just really want to make it easier for those of you who end up re-reading these stories, that way you're not forced to click all over the place just to read one story.

~~GemNika.


	5. Shatter Me

**A/N: This was originally supposed to be for Language, but… I kinda lost my shit with the glitter… So, this got switched with Toxic, and here we are!**

 **Without further ado, I give you…**

 **Day 4: Glitter.**

 **This is a songfic (of course)…**

 **Youtube: watch?v=49tpIMDy9BE**

* * *

 ** _Shatter Me_**

* * *

"Tell me why we're here again?"

Jellal brought up a hand to slowly swipe over his face in frustration. "You can read minds, and you _still_ keep asking the same question…" he grumbled to himself. A low growl sounded from across the table and he looked up just in time to see Midnight place an arm in front of Cobra to hold him back from lunging at him. By some miracle, these two members of the Oracion Seis had been legally released from prison, while the others stayed locked up. The fact that he'd been able to get them to join him in the first place after what had transpired at the Tower of Heaven was still surprising to him, but Jellal wasn't going to be picky when it came to trying to take down Zeref's cults. He and Meredy needed all the help they could get, and if Cobra and Midnight were willing, then he was going to accept their assistance. Oddly enough, Midnight had been a saving grace in the strangest of packages when it came time to deal with Cobra. It seemed that, even though the Poison Slayer had agreed to go along with Midnight, he still didn't trust Jellal in the slightest, and the Reflector mage had known him long enough to know when he was about to start poisoning people.

"I know that _you_ know it's Soul Listening magic, you tattooed fucksicle," Cobra sneered. "The day you stop saying I can 'read minds' is that day I stop asking you shit to piss you the hell off."

"Cobra," Jellal sighed. "I've already told you. We're here because we were invited."

"And you're hoping to sneak off when no one's looking to go and fuck Titania up in her office like the last time you were here," Cobra said, a cruel smirk playing across his lips when Jellal's eyes widened. "See? Heard that in your _soul_. You weren't _thinking_ about it. That's why _you_ were invited. You could have very easily just come here on your own."

"You should keep things like that to yourself, you insufferable—"

"Yeah yeah. Go wash that tramp stamp off your face, and maybe I'll take you seriously."

"I'd watch—"

"Yeah," Cobra chuckled darkly as he leaned forward slightly, his indigo eye sparking dangerously as his gaze bored into the blunette's deep brown glare. "You probably _should_ watch your mouth, Slave Driver. Spin it any way you fucking want to, but the fact of the matter is, _we're_ here…" He paused and gestured to himself and Midnight, whose eyes had closed again. "Because you don't fucking trust us. You want me to start trusting you, then maybe you should stop pretending I don't already know what's really going on in that fucked up pile of shit you call a brain."

"Why you—"

"Jellal! What are you guys doin' here?!" Natsu shouted as he plopped down in the only seat that sat between the two sneering mages, seemingly oblivious to the danger he'd put himself in. "Did Gramps invite you guys to watch the show? It's talent night, y'know!"

"Actually, yes," Jellal said, sighing in relief that the pink-haired Slayer had diverted the attention to himself before a fight broke out.

"Salamander, we've been here for the past two fucking hours," Cobra sighed, nodding to Kinana when she dropped off another round of drinks at their table. "Pretty sure we got the memo, you retarded shit—OW! Kinana, what the hell?!"

"Be nice, Erik," Kinana said sweetly, patting the spot on the top of Cobra's head that she's smacked with her tray.

"Yeah, _Erik_ ," Happy snickered, missing the wide-eyed looks both Midnight and Jellal gave him, along with how fervently they were shaking their heads to tell him to shut up. "Listen to your _giirrrrrrllfriend._ "

"I won't hesitate to poison your goddamn catnip you mangy little shit!" Cobra shouted, snarling when three pairs of arms held him back while the small blue Exceed flew away, cackling wildly as he went. "Salamander, control that wannabe Smurf before I drop his ass off at a Chinese food place."

"Hey, leave Happy outta this!" Natsu said indignantly. "He didn't do anything wrong!"

"He did," Midnight said slowly as he sat back down in his seat, pulling a fuming Cobra down with him. "No one calls him that without his permission. Not even us."

"Huh?"

"Don't fuckin' worry about it, Salamander," Cobra growled. "You wouldn't get it even if I gave you a damn picture book."

"Aw, come on! That's not—"

"And now!" Mira's voice boomed across the guild, effectively silencing everyone at once. "The final act of the night—"

"Thank _god_ ," Cobra groaned. "Then we can fucking _leave_."

"—Lucy Heartfilia and Wendy Marvell!" While the crowd hooted and hollered, Mira quickly ran off of the stage, then nodded for Warren to turn down the lights while Elfman slowly opened the theatrical curtain they had installed specifically for Lucy and Wendy's performance.

A small spotlight was shining down on Wendy while she knelt on the floor. There was a pink bonnet on her head with a blue flower pinned on one side. Her azure hair flowed freely and cascaded down over the light pink leotard she was wearing, and a fluffy pink tulle skirt fanned out around her on the ground. She kept her head down as she slowly stood to her feet, bringing a large replica of a key up to stand next to her. The jagged design gave her only a few places to put her hands, but she managed to get a firm grip on it as she walked further away from the crowd.

Wendy took the object and pushed it into the side of an otherwise unlit surface, then turned it slowly. The ratcheting sound of a wind-up toy filtered through the air with each subsequent turn, and an eerie blue glow started travelling down the key, lighting up ancient runes along the way. A music box let out its odd tinkling tune while two more spotlights lit up the much larger object that Wendy had activated.

Everyone's eyes were drawn up the strange mechanical structure, gears and cogs slowly turning in place all along the base of it, only to see a silhouetted figure with her arms held above her by what they could only assume were strings attached to her wrists, her body suspended several feet in the air above of the platform. A large, infinitely spiraling clock face appeared just behind the woman that they knew was Lucy, coated in a fogged sort of glass that bathed the stage in a strange orange glow while the numbers on the clock cast odd shadows all across the stage and crowd.

 _I pirouette in the dark  
I see the stars through a mirror_

As Lucy's silhouette lifted one leg into the air, her ballet slipper covered toes pressing against the inside of her other knee, she began to slowly spin in place. Wendy made her way in spin after graceful spin from one side of the stage to the other as the single violin played the small lyrical interlude, small motes of light appearing in the air behind her and looking for all they were worth just like she was being followed by stars.

 _Tired mechanical heart  
Beats 'til the song disappears_

The glowing from the clock face started to pulse in time with the music, fading until it was hardly giving off any light. Cobra's eye narrowed as he listened to the song. He took in the scene again and again, wondering just why it all looked so familiar to him, and an uneasy feeling settled itself in his stomach when the spotlight started increasing in its intensity on Lucy as the tension in the music grew.

 _Somebody shine a light  
I'm frozen by the fear in me_

Lucy's head slowly lifted as she looked out into the crowd once the spotlight started fully shining down on her. Each syllable that passed her lips was filled with her emotions, everything she had felt and still did even a year after that horrible day. She felt the fear welling up inside of her, just as it had the last time she was pressed against the face of a clock. She saw the shocked faces of everyone in the audience when they realized that she was the one singing instead of just a track playing in the background, but her usual stage fright had no room to make her lock up when she saw two faces she hadn't expected to see that night.

 _Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

Wendy's arms flung open wide, her head flying back as she took a protective stance in front of the clock. The crowd gasped as a large crack etched itself down the center of the glass over the clock face, and the hands started to turn.

 _So cut me from the line  
Dizzy, spinning endlessly_

The hands on the clock turned sharply and snapped the bindings around Lucy's wrists, dropping her down to land on perfectly pointed toes without a sound. She began quickly spinning away from where she'd been bound to the edge of the platform she was on, and Cobra's stomach lurched when he realized why it had all looked so familiar to him. Lucy's thoughts and roiling emotions only set that inkling he had firmly in place. Her being bound in the air, a girl in a pink dress, the key to start the clock, and the fact that those numbers that counted the time were spinning infinitely toward the center. It was a reenactment of what happened that day they had stupidly tried to sacrifice the Celestial mage so they could destroy everything.

 _Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

Lucy's hands pressed up against a large clear glass that closed her off from jumping down from the platform, searching frantically for a way to break through it. Her eyes clenched shut as she belted the lyrics, and finally pounded both of her fists against the glass. A fissure appeared in the glass, and she was thrown backwards into the face of the clock again as the violin solo began.

Cobra couldn't tear his gaze away from the sight of Lucy's blonde hair fanning out around her as she moved so effortlessly around the glass prison she was kept in. Her silvery grey leotard and skirt only made her skin seem to glow, giving her an eerily ethereal quality while she danced. Both she and Wendy were in perfect unison, the young Slayer moving from one end of the stage to the other while Lucy copied her every move from where she was being held in the much smaller space. Spins, twirls, graceful arches of their backs one way or the other, even going up to stand on the very tips of their toes while they spun in place. The only difference in their movement was that Lucy would slam herself against the glass while Wendy continued to dance so freely across the stage. And every time it happened, a look of utter devastation would etch itself onto Lucy's face as she helplessly watched the freedom Wendy was given.

 _Shatter me!  
Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

"We're a couple of assholes," Midnight whispered, knowing Cobra would hear him even if he hadn't spoken out loud. When Cobra simply nodded while his jaw tensed, Midnight sighed and shook his head as he looked back at the stage. Even if he had wanted to, he couldn't possibly find it in himself to fall asleep while Lucy was performing; not because of how loudly she was singing, but because they had somehow gained her forgiveness for what they had done to her in the past. "Seriously… I still don't know how she doesn't hate us for that."

"Luce doesn't hate anyone," Natsu whispered with a proud smile on his face. "You guys are her friends now, and that's all that matters."

Cobra sneered and rolled his eye at the naïve Slayer's words. That just wasn't how shit worked. A person didn't just forgive and forget, and this little performance of Lucy's only seemed to prove him right. He could hear her pain—both what she'd experienced that day, and what those memories made her feel right then—her suffering, and her unending sadness. He didn't understand how she could possibly have befriended both himself and Midnight if this was how much they had truly hurt her before. Sure, he had heard for himself that she didn't hold what happened in the past against them since they had turned their lives around, but Midnight was right. They were assholes, and she had every right to hate them for trying to erase her from existence.

 _If only the clockwork could speak  
I wouldn't be so alone_

Lucy paused in front of the glass again, pressing her forehead against it while she slowly reached to the backlit silhouette of her father off to her right. They hadn't necessarily been on great terms before she disappeared, but she wanted to be. She'd never gotten the chance to tell him that she forgave him, that she still wanted to be a part of his life. The silhouette reached for her hand, and a wide and hopeful smile stretched across her face. She wanted so badly just to feel his hand holding hers one more time. It was because of her father that she had been given the Clock hand in the first place, because he'd wanted her to protect it. He had placed his faith in her before he died, and Lucy never got the chance to thank him for believing in her.

 _We'd burn every magnet and spring  
And spiral into the unknown_

The silhouette faded just before Lucy's hand could touch it, and she crumpled to the ground and held her head in her hands. The numbers on the clock started spinning in the opposite direction of the hands as they continued counting down toward what would be Lucy's doom. Cobra's eye went wide when he actually smelled her tears from where he was sitting, her soul wailing in tandem with her silent cries over her past. Midnight had been the one that spearheaded that whole plan, and Cobra had just gone along with it because he couldn't handle the pain of not having Cubellios anymore. He had searched so desperately for her once they'd broken out of prison, but he never found his only friend. Because he'd been wallowing in his own misery, he never even heard the agonized cries of Lucy's soul that day. He heard them now though, loud and fucking clear. He didn't want to remember just how much they had hurt someone he'd come to realize was a good and sweet person, but there was no way for him to even try to move. He was glued to his seat, just as his eye was glued to Lucy. They owed her a lot for being able to forgive them for that day, so he was just going to suck it up and listen to her.

 _Somebody shine a light  
I'm frozen by the fear in me_

Wendy dashed up a set of hidden stairs off to the side of the large platform, kneeling down in front of Lucy and pressing her hands to the cracked glass. She smiled encouragingly when Lucy's teary eyes looked up at her, feeling a little more at ease when the blonde smiled right back and stayed in character the way they'd practiced. At Lucy's almost imperceptible nod, Wendy stood to her feet and created a small whirlwind of air around herself, kicking up the pile of black and green glitter that had been placed there for her 'transformation'.

 _Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

When the miniature storm settled, everyone gasped as Wendy was revealed again, wearing an outfit that was nearly identical to the one Imitatia had worn—from the strange leaf top to the skirt, the forest green gloves, and even down to the rose that covered her right eye with the thorny band wrapping around her head. Lucy felt the betrayal all over again, seeing in her mind's eye the girl she'd thought was her last living relative becoming a monster right before her eyes.

 _So cut me from the line  
Dizzy, spinning endlessly_

The hands of the clock started spinning faster and faster, the gears underneath groaning as time essentially rushed past. Cobra's teeth ground together while he listened to Lucy's soul as she continued singing. Even while she was belting out the notes of the song with more power and emotion than he thought her petite body could have managed, it was her soul that called for his attention. The appearance of Imitatia had caused a dissonant wail to start swirling inside of the blonde. Betrayal, anger, sadness, desperation and loneliness clashed within her, each of them battling wildly to try and come out victorious while forcing Lucy herself into a fetid pit of anguish. He could see those emotions clear as day in his own mind, and when he tried to focus on tuning her out as it became too much for him to bear, they only got louder. It seemed like her soul was desperate to be heard, just for someone to acknowledge it and see her pain for what it was instead of pushing her by the wayside.

 _Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me  
Shatter me!  
Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

Wendy grinned and ran back down the stairs as Lucy started pounding on the glass again, sending invisible gusts of wind at the glass here and there to start creating larger and larger cracks all across its surface. Lucy continued banging on the glass, then started clawing violently at the fissures in the hopes of breaking through. Silhouette after silhouette passed over the glass of every member of Fairy Tail that had been fighting to free her that day. Each time a new one faded, a fissure would appear where they had been. Their presence, their grit and determination to save Lucy—to save the world—had weakened Midnight and his gang's control over the clock, and had given Lucy the will to fight back when she had wanted nothing more than to give up.

 _If I break the glass then I'll have to fly  
There's no one to catch me if I take a dive  
I'm scared of change and the days stay the same  
The world is spinning but only in gray_

Lucy took several steps back until she was leaning against the clock's face. Cobra barely heard Midnight and Natsu gasp when Lucy's little twin spirits appeared in the form of Michelle—the innocent form Imitatia had assumed to gain Lucy's trust and lead her to the Infinity Clock in the first place. Their hands clasped tightly, their fingers laced together, and they started running forward straight at the glass that was holding Lucy prisoner. It shattered out towards the crowd, causing everyone in the room to gasp as one when Lucy leapt so effortlessly through the air. Michelle disappeared and Lucy's head tilted back while she flew through the air, her arms spread wide open as though they were wings and her legs parted in a split with only one ballet-slippered foot pointing towards the audience.

Even though the glass obscured a portion of the blonde, Cobra was still able to see those two small spirits whirling around her faster and faster as they unraveled the silver outfit she was wearing. His breath stalled in his throat as it constricted when she landed on the toes of one foot, her other leg pulled into an unnatural—but no less beautiful—arch behind her, and her arms slowly lowered as though she was a bird that had just landed after only a short flight. The shards of glass glinted in the light as they floated down through the air, fading into harmless specks of glittering dust once they reached the ground. Gone was that ethereal leotard with its matching skirt, and in its place was a tattered black corset—complete with rips and tears in the fabric that exposed her cream-colored skin—and a blood red skirt that hung limply down to her mid-thigh in thin strips of a sheer, tulle-like material.

 _If I break the glass then I'll have to fly  
There's no one to catch me if I take a dive  
I'm scared of change and the days stay the same  
The world is spinning but only in gray_

Wendy grabbed Lucy's hand and wrenched her away from the center of the stage, dragging her to one side before they separated. She and Lucy spun towards each other before engaging in an articulately choreographed dance to make it seem as though they were fighting one another. Every time Lucy jumped into a split in a feigned kick towards her, Wendy would pirouette out of the way. If Wendy tenderly latched onto Lucy's hands with her own, the blonde would pull herself away as quickly as possible, stumbling backwards before rushing on into another attack.

Even through it all, through all of the pain and suffering the Reborn Oracion Seis had wrought upon the woman, her head was still held high. Cobra could see and smell her tears from where he was sitting, and he could hear just how intensely her soul had begun sobbing. What caught him off guard though—which was definitely something that piqued his interest because it was becoming far too frequent for his liking where Lucy was concerned—was the single thought that was actively running through her mind when her eyes locked onto his for the briefest of moments. While she was singing about being scared of change, Lucy was also internally thanking Cobra and those that had hurt her so much for giving her the ability to shatter the glass that had kept her locked up as a prisoner of her past. She felt as though she'd been caged, shackled with those memories of her own childhood that still haunted her, and the psycho somehow saw the horrible shit they had forced on her as a _good_ thing.

 _(Only...)_

Lucy and Wendy twirled towards one another on their toes, their hands finally locking together while they looked into each other's eyes. Lucy smiled softly and brushed a hand over Wendy's cheek just under the rose covering her eye, then they started dancing as one. Wendy spun in tight circles under Lucy's arm, and they began a strange form of a waltz while keeping their feet pointed, circling around the stage in a wide birth that only amplified the sense of freedom Lucy felt. This performance had been her idea as a way to move past what had happened that day, to finally find a way to live on with the knowledge that her father truly loved her in the end—even if she had been too late to hear it from him directly. It was cathartic for her, and an immense weight lifted itself from her shoulders as she let the music fill her.

Another crack appeared in the clock face, running diagonally from the top right section down to the bottom left, and that orange glow that had been giving off only ambient light started to increase through each crack. They started to spider-web outward, but Lucy only danced with Wendy down on the stage, seemingly oblivious to what was happening just above their heads.

 _Somebody shine a light  
I'm frozen by the fear in me  
Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

Lucy winked at Wendy, and the young Slayer smiled brightly while they stood facing one another. She sent out another gust of controlled wind, causing a whirlwind of silver and white glitter that had previously been the glass keeping Lucy locked on the platform to shoot up into the air, engulfing the pair of them. Once they were obscured from view, Wendy rushed back towards the clock and backstage.

 _So cut me from the line  
Dizzy, spinning endlessly  
Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

Lucy gathered her magic and sent it out in a strong burst from herself, causing the glitter that Wendy was still controlling to fly out into the crowd as another crack appeared in the clock. She held her Michelle doll at arm's length and continued dancing with a smile on her face, spinning and swaying as though she was a small child again that was simply playing with her favorite doll. So many happy memories surrounded her time with this Michelle—times of having little tea parties in the gardens with her mother, when things were perfect in her young mind—that she couldn't help but smile down at the little cloth face.

 _Shatter me!  
Somebody make me feel alive  
And shatter me_

Cobra took a shaky breath while Lucy danced with that little doll in the pink dress, completely astounded by what he was hearing. Her singing had faded into the background for him, and all he could focus on was what was happening with her soul. It was _soaring_. Freedom, contentment, overwhelming happiness, and above all else… fucking _gratitude_ swelled inside of Lucy, forcing him to relive her memories right along with her. To hear and actually feel what she was experiencing while she looked back on the events of that day. To say he was surprised that his face even popped up in her memory was an understatement, but there he fucking was. Standing next to Angel and Midnight just before they had been sent off to take out the Fairies that were trying to thwart their plans. He hadn't paid any attention to her whatsoever, thinking she was far beneath him and that her pain was a joyous thing to bring about back then. Even though he would have reveled in her anguish, he'd ignored it completely.

Cobra was able to see just how cruel he'd been from someone else's perspective, and for the first time in his life… He hated it. He watched from her mind's eye, seeing every single detail of what she'd endured since she had returned from Tenrou Island—her father dying before she could mend their relationship, finding a connection with Michelle only for it to be torn away from her once Imitatia appeared, being absorbed by the Clock. He felt her will to fight, even though such a large part of her wanted to just let them win so she wouldn't have to feel the pain of her loss any longer. She had suffered more than they had known—more than they had really cared at the time—but the loneliness that had nestled itself in her soul was a melody he knew well. Even a year after having found that Kinana was Cubellios, Cobra still felt that familiar melody within himself.

Even though such painful memories were swirling in her, Lucy was _happy_. She was glad that she had those memories; that Cobra, Midnight, and the others had kidnapped her and tried to sacrifice her. The crazed blonde on the stage felt that she had become who she was now because of what they had forced on her. She was a better person, stronger now than she could have ever imagined, _because of them_. He couldn't even begin to fathom just how she was able to feel something like that, and while the lyrics of the song played through her mind over and over, he felt something within his own hardened soul shatter as well.

 _Shatter me!  
Somebody make me feel alive_

Unbeknownst to Cobra, Jellal had found a way to tear his gaze from the enthralling performance to throw in a jab at the Slayer about his own past fuckups, but that had died in his throat when he saw how intently Cobra was watching Lucy as she danced with the little doll. Cobra's jaw had gone slack, a slight tremble rolling across not just his lips (which was surprising in and of itself), but over his entire body. Of course Jellal knew that Cobra was most likely listening in on Lucy's soul, since he had a tendency to do that constantly—no matter how much he complained about hearing what was going on in everyone's heads or how loud it was. Clearly, whatever the monster his own past misdeeds had created was shocked by what he was hearing, and while it gave Jellal a smug sense of satisfaction to know that even Cobra could be affected by something, he'd never expected _this_. From where he was sitting, Jellal had the perfect view of Cobra's good eye, which meant that he had a front row seat to the silent spectacle of tears rolling down the mage's cheek. With a furrowed brow, Jellal carefully nudged a teary-eyed and grinning Natsu, then gestured towards Cobra once he had the Slayer's attention.

Natsu raised a brow and turned to look at the Poison Slayer, his grin somehow widening when he saw what had Erza's longtime love so speechless and utterly confused. He quickly turned back to the blunette and put a finger to his lips then pointed back at the stage, signaling that they would talk once Lucy was done with her performance.

 _And shatter me!_

The clock finally shattered. The cogs and gears came to a halt as the glass exploded violently, but instead of it raining down on top of the Celestial mage, it coalesced in a swirling mass above her. Lucy dropped to her knees while cradling Michelle in her arms in the center of the stage. Her head slowly bowed as the mass above her finally took shape in the form of the Fairy Tail emblem. The lights dimmed until there was only a single blue spotlight shining down on her, and Lucy slowly brushed a stray string of hair off to the side of Michelle's face when her mic finally cut off just when a stifled whimper escaped her lips. The spotlight finally faded along with the last notes of the song, the glittering emblem above slowing dissipating and showering the stage and the crying blonde with glitter, and Lucy took a shuddering breath while Wendy rushed back out onto the stage. The little blunette helped Lucy stand up, and she couldn't help but laugh when she was pulled into a surprisingly strong embrace by those slender arms.

Once the normal lighting of the guild returned, every person in the crowd shot to their feet while they cheered and applauded. Not many of the members of Fairy Tail knew just what Lucy herself had endured during that fiasco, but they all knew now. They had felt her strength and resolve increasing as the song had progressed, and most were drying the tears from their eyes right along with her. Jellal grinned and turned to speak with Natsu over the cheers of the crowd while Lucy and Wendy bowed, but the sight of a maroon head of hair disappearing into the crowd gave him pause. _'What the hell is he up to?'_ he thought.

* * *

"Wendy, you were amazing!" Mira shouted gleefully, pulling the girl into a tight hug. She looked up at Lucy, her smile widening as she forced the teary-eyed blonde into the embrace. "You too, Lucy! That was magnificent!"

Lucy giggled and hugged both Wendy and Mira, then carefully pulled herself away. "Thanks, Mira. I couldn't have done it without Wendy and my spirits though. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have somehow managed to get glitter in my underwear, and that needs to be handled." She gave both of her friends a brilliant smile before walking off towards the back hallway that led to the makeshift dressing rooms for the night. She turned the final corner and froze when she came face to face—well, face to chest, really—with Cobra, barely stopping herself in time before she bumped into the grumpy Poison Slayer.

Once she looked up into his eyes, seeing nothing there aside from the same perplexingly bored scowl, Lucy felt a twinge of guilt for bringing up the past. It was over a year ago that the Reborn Oracion Seis had tried to sacrifice her, and while she had been using the performance as a way to move on from it, she was fully aware of the fact that it had also just rubbed the past right in their faces. Regardless of how angry Cobra seemed all the time, or how she and Midnight hardly ever spoke because he was always asleep when Crime Sorciere visited the guild, she still considered them her friends. As such, she never wanted to intentionally upset either of them, especially when they had both come so far in making up for their past transgressions.

Cobra rolled his eye when Lucy just continued staring at him like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Honestly, there were times that he missed people instantly being afraid of him. At least it wasn't nearly as annoying as the whirlwind of guilt that consumed the little blonde. "Look, you can cut that guilty shit out right now," he growled, smirking when she jolted in surprise. "You've got every right to hate us for that shit." When Lucy frowned and opened her mouth, ready to dissuade his belief right away, he sighed and scratched the back of his head uncharacteristically. "I know. You forgave us anyway. Still… We're, umm… We're sorry. You never actually got an apology from us, so… there."

Lucy slowly blinked, her jaw dropping open in surprise. She took a moment to really look at Cobra, and found herself drawn to that single deep purple eye of his. It was a perfect contrast to his darker skin, and she somehow found herself mulling over whether his eye made his hair look darker, or if it was his hair that made his eye seemed more purple than blue. The longer she looked at him, the more intrigued she was. Especially when she saw evidence of recently shed tears on his cheek and in the slight glisten of his only working eye. She couldn't help but wonder just what could have possibly made him cry.

"I wasn't," Cobra whispered, looking away from her so she couldn't see just how right she was. After a moment, he chuckled and added, "And you should probably handle that glitter that's trying to take over your snatch… Otherwise, I'm gonna start calling you Tinkerbell."

Lucy snorted in a highly unlady-like manner, knowing her father would have been fuming if he'd heard it when she was still living in the Konzern. Either the noise itself or her train of thought brought Cobra's gaze shooting back to her, and she openly laughed while shaking her head at him. "Honestly, you just might _have_ to start calling me that. I'm pretty sure it's too late for me…"

"Yeah, how so?" Cobra asked, cocking one eyebrow while he stared the strange blonde down.

"Because my lady bits have been conquered by glitter… I can feel it," Lucy laughed, shifting uncomfortably when a few hundred particularly persistent crafting horrors decided they needed to try and take residence between her butt cheeks. She knew Cobra heard what she was about to say by the humorous glint in his eye, but just for good measure she leaned in and whispered, "Pretty sure I'll be perpetually queefing little puffs of pixie dust."

Cobra let out a short bark of laughter, followed by more when Lucy returned to her original position and started laughing along with him. "I think your old man would've been fuming more if he heard you talking about glittery pussyfarts, Tinkerbell." He watched as she quite literally lit up from within while she started laughing harder, and he couldn't help but mirror that odd sort of happiness she was feeling. Once their laughter died down, he shifted from one foot to the other when he heard her wondering what he was doing back by the dressing rooms, then whispered, "I um… I heard everything while you were out there. It's why I came to talk to you… I wanted to—"

Lucy quickly put her fingers up to Cobra's lips to silence him, smiling when his eye went wide and he stared at her in shock. She slowly pulled her hand away, then held up one finger to tell him to wait. Deciding to just have some fun and see what happened, Lucy glanced around to see if a certain demon barmaid was anywhere around— hoping that her simple conversation with Cobra wouldn't be dissolved in a baby-fiend attack of epic proportions. The last thing she needed was Mira chasing after her with a turkey baster… like she had done when Erza and Jellal became a couple.

Cobra blanched at the mental picture Lucy's mind painted, thinking she had an overactive imagination… That is, until that memory of Mira chasing Erza popped up. "Baby Brain is out serving drinks with Kinana," he said with a shudder. "I'll be sure to keep turkey basters far the fuck out of her reach… That's… That's fucking creepy."

"Good idea." Lucy turned and narrowed her eyes at him, then smirked and looked down at her chest for a second. She brought one hand up and pulled her corset away from herself just enough to push her other hand between her breasts.

"What the fuck are you—" Cobra paused and gaped at the sheer size of the pile of glitter Lucy pulled from her cleavage. He knew her chest was huge, but… a whole handful of the shit was lodged in there?! Really?!

Lucy grinned and threw the glitter up into the air, laughing as it rained down on herself and Cobra. She took a deep breath, then said, "Thank you, Cobra. I already forgave you, but hearing an apology—no matter how awkward—really does mean a lot to me." She went to walk past him, but stopped when he lightly grabbed her wrist and turned to look at her questioningly.

"What's with the shower of your tit glitter?" Cobra asked.

Lucy giggled. "Just giving you some pixie dust, Peter Pan." She reached up and lightly flicked the pointed tip of one ear, grinning when Cobra growled and snapped his teeth at her hand half-heartedly. She quickly leaned in and pressed a short kiss to his cheek when his scarred eye was facing her, already knowing that she was technically in his blind spot. "Really though," she whispered as she pulled her wrist from his lax grip, "Thanks, Cobra."

Cobra stood rooted to the spot while Lucy began walking away. "Hey, Tinkerbell…" He heard her pause when she reached the door to the dressing room she was using, and slowly turned to see her smiling at him and blushing. "Call me Erik, alright?" he whispered with a smirk.

Lucy's blush deepened and she slowly turned the doorknob, her smile widening as she said, "Thanks, Erik. But… I think I'll stick with Peter Pan." She giggled when a light blush made itself visible on Cobra's cheeks, and slipped into the dressing room. As she closed and locked the door behind her, Lucy thought, _'Wow, he's really cute when he's uncomfortable...'_

Cobra blinked for a moment, hearing just what Lucy had thought once the door was closed. The sound of someone clearing their throat had him narrowing his eye, and he turned around only to sneer when he saw Jellal leaning against the wall right around the corner. "The fuck do you want _now_?"

Jellal smirked at the sight of a glitter-covered Cobra while they started walking back towards their table. "I was just wondering where you were running off to…"

"… And?"

Jellal rolled his eyes and came to a stop, silently thankful that Cobra stopped as well. "And just what the hell you heard that made you act that way." Before Cobra could deny anything, he added, "I've been here the whole time, Cobra."

Cobra growled and got ready to start smacking some sense into the blunette, and then he heard how Lucy's soul was humming happily while she thought about how much she'd enjoyed talking with him, along with a few underlying thoughts about how his cheek felt against her lips and her own speculations about how the _rest_ of his skin felt. "I wanted to thank her, that's all. And I'm not telling you what I heard, because that's her own damn business."

"Yeah, something that _you_ of all people was privy to," Jellal countered. "You're not exactly well known for using that knowledge altruistically."

"I'll give you that one, but it's nothing I could use against her even if I wanted to—which I don't." Cobra rolled his eye when he heard Jellal thinking of everything else he'd heard, then started to stalk away. Only to freeze in his tracks when his 'guild master' spoke again.

"You know why she called you Peter Pan, right?"

"Aside from her thinking about how my ears are pointed like his, and that Tinkerbell is the fairy in that story… No."

Jellal chuckled and walked up to Cobra, patting his shoulder as though they were the closest of friends. "Well, Tinkerbell is the one that gives Peter Pan the ability to fly… by using pixie dust." When Cobra simply stared at him, Jellal rolled his eyes and said, "Erza has known Lucy for a very long time, so I've come to know her as well through Erza. She loves books almost as much as she loves this guild, but… she also loves word games nearly as much as you do."

"Okay… And?"

Jellal face-palmed with a heavy sigh. "For someone who can read mi—I mean, who can _hear souls_ ," he said slowly, "You're kind of a dumbass. If that wasn't her hinting at wanting to sleep with you, then I don't know what was…"

"How the fuck did you come to _that_ conclusion?!"

"Tinkerbell uses her pixie dust to help Peter Pan fly," Jellal repeated slowly, watching and hoping Cobra would pick up what he was hinting at. Apparently the guy was listening in on Lucy instead, because there wasn't a lightbulb going off above his head when Jellal explicitly explained it in his mind. With a sigh, Jellal said, "Think about _why_ you said you were going to call her Tinkerbell. That's all I'll say." With that, he walked off, grinning over the fact that Cobra had also missed the whisper of a thought he'd had concerning Tinkerbell actually being in love with Peter Pan. Suddenly, Erza's plan to bring those two together—and not telling him about it until after Cobra had left the table—made tons of sense. As it turns out, Lucy had told Erza a few months prior about her feelings for Cobra, and his beautiful redheaded girlfriend decided to help her friend find some happiness. As far as Jellal was concerned, Lucy would most likely be a good influence on Cobra. _'Then again… she apparently has his same sense of humor…'_

Cobra stood in the hallway, thinking about what Jellal had said, then going over his conversation with Lucy. It took all of five seconds for him to make the connection. _'Pixie dust, huh?'_ he thought with a smirk. He turned and made his way over to the door Lucy had disappeared behind, and quickly knocked. Not a moment later, the blushing blonde answered wearing only a robe.

"What's up, Peter Pan?" Lucy giggled. "Miss me already?"

"Figured you could help me get some flying done, Tinkerbell," he answered as his eye raked over her. No way in hell was he going to turn down a woman like Lucy. She was gorgeous—even he had noticed that, he wasn't blind—surprisingly funny, but most importantly… she forgave him for what had happened and wasn't intimidated by him in the slightest. That was something he'd never experienced before, but he found that where Lucy was concerned, he really fucking liked it.

Lucy grinned when she saw Cobra's gaze sweeping over her, then roughly grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him into the room with her. She slammed the door and pushed him up against it, slanting her mouth over his and moaning softly when he instantly responded.

Cobra groaned as his tongue pushed past her lips, his hands gliding down over the silk of her robe and cupping her ass while he pulled her flush against him. Once Lucy's hands tangled in his hair, he pushed her robe higher only to feel purely naked flesh in his palms. He wasn't really one for foreplay, and even if he had been, the room they were locked in wasn't the place for it, so Cobra slowly slid one hand between her legs and growled when he realized that she was actually totally bare aside from that slip of fabric. A guttural moan spilled from her plump lips while he nipped at them and pushed one digit into her. As he started slowly withdrawing from the tight channel, he chuckled as Lucy tore the robe from herself before moving to his own clothes. Her hand stole down the front of his pants, and when her dainty hand closed over his shaft, the only thing he could think was, _'Looks like Peter Pan's gonna be flying real soon...'_

* * *

 **And that's it for Day 4. This one definitely went in a different direction than what I had originally planned for the ending, but I prefer it this way.**

 **I'd like to give a huge shout-out to _LittlePrincessNana_ (my beautiful Triplet in more than just our minds, apparently) for the actual barebones plot for this prompt. I had chosen the song and had a rough summary of Lucy dancing with Cobra in the audience, and she went off like a rocket with her brilliance. As far as I'm concerned, this prompt—along with several others this week—are collaborations with her. So, thank you for being such a perfect muse, Nana!**

 ** _Tomorrow's Prompt_**

 ** _Day 5: Rumors._**

 **So… Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys!**

 **~~GemNika.**


	6. Insultasaurus Rex

**I'd like to apologize to my readers.**

 _ **This story has been moved to a separate entry on FFnet.**_

You can find the new story entry on my FFnet page under the title: "I'm in Love with a Lunatic"

Although links don't work on this godforsaken site, here's the URL if you want to go that route instead. Just remove the spaces that are placed after the dots and slashes. Oh my god, I hate how the formatting is on this site.

 _(fanfiction dot net) /s/ 12555031/ 1/ I-m-in-Love-With-a-Lunatic_

Sorry for the inconvenience. I just really want to make it easier for those of you who end up re-reading these stories, that way you're not forced to click all over the place just to read one story.

~~GemNika.


	7. Family Tree

**A/N: Holy crap! I'm so sorry this took so long! I saved this one for last because of the original plot, and then switched it entirely when I started working on it a few days ago! The original plot for this has been set to the side for another time, when I've got more time to write something heartbreaking! With that being said, I hope you guys enjoy what I've got for you today.  
**

 **Hopefully there aren't too many mistakes toward the end. I'm determined to get this out on time! Lol.**

 **Without further ado, I (finally) give you…**

 **Day 6: Family**

* * *

 ** _Family Tree_**

* * *

Lucy groaned and placed her hands on her stomach, her lip curling in discomfort when a tiny foot decided to wiggle just beneath her palm. "Alright, alright," she sighed. "You're just as bad as your father…" Putting a small amount of pressure on the side of her swollen belly that was pressed against the bed, Lucy carefully and extremely slowly rolled over onto her other side. She grimaced when she was lying on her back, slowly rubbing soothing circles over what she assumed was the restless little child's back—although it could have been the butt, Lucy was going off of intuition—and took a deep breath before finishing her rotation. A contented sigh slipped past her lips as she tucked a large body pillow between her legs and under her stomach, and Lucy closed her eyes while she tried to fall asleep again.

Eight months into her pregnancy, and she was definitely feeling like a whale. Well, more like she had eaten a whale and was in the process of digesting it. What was worse was that Cobra, her oddly endearing yet no less grumpy husband and mate of three years, was out on an S-Class mission with Laxus and Gajeel and wasn't due back for another few nights. She always found it more difficult to sleep when he wasn't there, since their little baby girl seemed to enjoy curling herself up to get closer to his warmth. Lucy knew part of that was because he actually ended up secreting the smallest bit of poison over the course of the night while they slept, and that it soaked into her skin to give their little one the extra nourishment she needed. Then there was the fact that he had a habit of just watching Lucy sleep and rubbing her belly—something she had found out when she had woken up in the middle of the night to pee a few nights after they found out the sex—all while softly humming song after song to the growing life inside of her.

It wasn't lost on her that he was determined to be the best father imaginable because of his own tortured past, and she had lost count of how many times the tenderness he showed her and their unborn child had brought her to tears. Her hand slowly moved down to rub her swollen belly again, and she smiled when she felt the baby rolling over to get more comfortable. She still couldn't believe that she and Cobra had created such a wonderful little life, and that they would get to meet her in only a month. All of the cravings, the raging hormones, swollen ankles, heartburn, sleepless nights, and back pain were well worth it in Lucy's eyes. Hell, even the fact that she was sure she had her own gravitational pull that only increased as their daughter grew even larger. "You're somewhere between a bag of potato chips and a tub of chicken right now," she whispered tenderly, a soft and breathy laugh slipping past her lips. "Neither of which Daddy will let us have too much of. He definitely spoils us, though…"

That was true in more ways than she could even express. For all the times she'd had just the right words to perfectly describe any given situation—with her author's mind instantly supplying every perfectly placed adjective and noun—how Cobra cared so deeply for the two most important girls in his life was something that was always just out of reach when it came to putting it to words. She could spend hours describing just what he'd done for her, how it had made her feel, and what the result was of his tender actions. But, no matter what she said or thought or wrote in her letters to her parents, it wasn't enough.

"He always puts extra strawberries on our pancakes," Lucy sighed as she closed her eyes again. "And rubs Mommy's back when you've been a little wiggle worm all day." A sweet and sleepy smile pulled at her lips, her hand still circling over her stomach. "He kisses us right when we wake up, and watches all those silly movies Mommy loves, even though he hates them. Just between you and me, Doodle Bug? I think Daddy likes them at least a little."

The baby wiggled slightly, and Lucy decided that her daughter agreed with her observation.

"Daddy makes sure to take Uncle Laxus and Uncle Gajeel with him on missions, so you and I don't have to worry about him as much."

A fluttering kick made Lucy jolt, and her eyes shot open in surprise.

"It's perfectly fine to worry about Daddy when he's away," she whispered tenderly. When another, stronger kick hit her palm Lucy laughed and closed her eyes again. "Yes, Daddy's very strong, and he doesn't really need anyone with him to take care of himself."

The baby rolled over again.

"But, no matter how strong and powerful he is, it's always better to have someone with you, sweetie. Uncle Laxus and Uncle Gajeel are strong too, and they'll make sure that Daddy comes home safe and sound." Lucy smiled as a knee shifted in her belly, one tiny leg extending into what she could only assume was a more comfortable position. "Not even born yet, and you're already telling me that he's incapable of getting hurt," she mused with a yawn. "I'll have you know, sweetie… Daddy _can_ get hurt. And any time he does, Mommy's right there to take care of him. Just like he did for me before."

Lucy's hand finally stilled and she opened her eyes to look at the picture of herself and Cobra on her nightstand. There wasn't much light peeking in the window, but she could see just well enough to make out the image. She remembered the day they took that picture as though it was only yesterday, even though it wasn't the first time they had met under that tree. Her relationship with Cobra seemed to revolve around the tall oak in the picture.

He had been released from prison, and was making his way to Fairy Tail, and Lucy ran into him (literally) under that tree while running away from a Vulcan.

Team Natsu had been coming home from a mission, and Natsu ended up burning a good portion of the forest down. That tree was one of the few survivors, because Cobra had been passing through and knocked Natsu out while Lucy had Aquarius put the fire out. She had thanked him by treating him to a round of drinks at the guild.

Cobra asked Lucy out under that same tree almost a year later. The first time they slept together was on a clear night while looking up at the stars through its branches. When she'd gotten the courage to say she loved him for the first time, and he'd thankfully reciprocated, it had been there. Every milestone in their relationship, even the day he proposed when the leaves were dead and there was a foot of snow on the ground, had involved that tree.

The picture on the nightstand was one of the happiest days of her life. The day they'd gotten married. It had been a spur of the moment decision to do it right then instead of having a big fancy wedding. Her team, her two 'big brothers' Laxus and Gajeel, Kinana, and Master Makarov were there. Surprisingly, Midnight and Angel had stopped by for a random visit, and they'd been able to attend the small wedding under the oak tree. Erza had been acting as a photographer in Mira's stead—since someone needed to tend the bar at the guild—and she'd captured their first kiss as husband and wife perfectly.

No one had been wearing anything even remotely fancy, and Lucy wouldn't have it any other way. She wanted to see the ones that were most important in her life just as they were, not stuffed into uncomfortable suits and dresses to appease some bullshit stereotype that weddings are supposed to be gaudy events. Cobra was in his favorite pair of black pants, a dark red shirt, and his white jacket with the fur-lined edges she loved so much. She was wearing a black micro-skirt that he'd bought her for her birthday, a royal blue tube top, and her ankle-high combat boots. It didn't matter what they were wearing. Hell, if everyone present had been naked, it still wouldn't have mattered—although, she probably would have been scarred for life and burned all of the pictures if she'd seen Makarov sans clothing. No, what mattered to her was the fact that she'd married the best friend she'd ever had.

Sure, Natsu was her partner, and a great friend. But, Cobra… He understood her on so many levels that had nothing to do with his magic. Once Lucy had figured out his odd quirks and sense of humor, she saw how much of a sweetheart he actually was.

Lucy sighed happily, and slowly propped herself up on her elbow. She carefully reached over and picked up the bottle she kept next to the bed, then slowly sipped the nightshade tea—silently thanking the stars above that it tasted just as good cold as it did piping hot—when the baby started hiccupping. "I know," she whispered, looking down at her stomach, "Once Daddy's home we'll both sleep easier."

She put the bottle back down once the small bout of hiccups subsided, and snuggled back into the mountain of pillows she had accumulated to try and replicate Cobra's arms and chest while he held her. "You know, Doodle Bug," Lucy giggled, "There's a funny song your Daddy sings about the tree in the backyard. He wrote it after buying the property here, when him and Uncle Laxus and Uncle Gajeel were building our house. Do you want Mommy to sing it for you? Maybe it'll help us sleep."

Lucy tucked her hair behind her ear and closed her eyes while she started humming the melody, a soft smile on her lips as she remembered just how much time had passed since Cobra had come into her life, and how much more time they were going to have together.

* * *

"Just crash here tonight," Cobra said with a smirk as the two hulking Slayers trudged up the path behind him on their way to his and Lucy's home. "You guys built your own fucking room, might as well use it."

"Sparky's the one that did that shit," Gajeel grumbled tiredly, sighing when Laxus wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer. "I just went along with it since it means we get to see Bunny more often."

"You mean, have her cook you breakfast," Laxus chuckled, grunting when Gajeel elbowed his ribs.

"I never asked her to cook for me," Gajeel muttered with a smirk. "She does it 'cuz she loves me the most."

"Sure," Laxus chuckled, "Keep telling yourself that, babe."

"Well, she's not cooking breakfast tomorrow," Cobra said with a scowl. "She hardly sleeps when I'm not there, so I'll be surprised if she even gets out of bed before noon unless she's taking a piss." When they reached the front door, he turned to narrow his eye at the two cuddly Slayers that had named themselves Lucy's siblings and added, "Not a fucking sound, got it? She's half asleep right now, and if she hears you two, she'll wanna get out of bed."

Laxus and Gajeel rolled their eyes and nodded. Once the three of them were inside—with the door silently closed and locked behind them, and three pairs of boots sitting in the appropriate cubbies beneath the bench at the door—they started making their way through the darkened house. Gajeel frowned and paused in his step, causing Laxus to run into his back at the end of the hallway.

Cobra sighed and whispered, "Yeah, she's singing. C'mon, this is probably the only time you'll hear her doing it." He silently led them down the hallway to stand outside of his and Lucy's room, then turned and raised his eyebrow at the slack-jawed expressions he was faced with when all he heard from both of their thoughts was dead air.

 _Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree?  
They strung up a man  
They say who murdered three.  
Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

"Why the hell doesn't she sing around anyone?" Gajeel whispered in shock as he listened to what he could only describe as the most beautiful goddamn voice he'd ever heard in his life. Lucy sounded like a sultry and soulful lounge singer, with the strangest hint of sweetness and innocence in her voice that made it utterly enchanting. "Bunny sounds... amazing..."

Cobra sighed and shook his head as he listened to Lucy through the door. He always loved hearing her sing, because the first time he'd accidentally caught her doing it, he found out that the beautiful, throaty alto voice that was constantly humming in her soul was actually exactly the same as her normal singing voice. It had floored him at the time, to think someone's vocal cords could actually produce such a pure sound, but that was just how Lucy was. She was so perfectly in tune with her soul, that she naturally sang that way as well. "Her old man," he answered sadly. "He heard her singing after her mom died, and beat the shit out of her for it since she sounded just like her mom. Confused the shit out of her too, since he kept making her take singing lessons."

"The fuck?" Laxus whispered with a sneer.

Cobra nodded. "Turns out, he was trying to change her voice, and when that didn't work he just made her feel like shit for it. Bastard told her that women weren't supposed to sound like _whores_ while they're singing. She was fucking _eleven_... Now she's scared to let anyone hear her doing it, because she still believes that her singing makes her sound like that... Hell, she even thinks _I'll_ think that if I hear her more often than not..."

"That's beyond fucked up," Gajeel hissed.

"I know... It might get better though," Cobra replied hopefully as he looked at the closed door to the bedroom again. "She used to love singing, and maybe when the baby's born, she'll want to do it more often..."

 _Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree?  
Where dead man called out  
For his love to flee.  
Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

"And just what the fuck is she singing to my niece?" Laxus added just as softly, frowning at the thought of the fucked up piece of shit that had been her father treating his daughter so cruelly. Ivan bad been a downright asshole, but that... Saying a little girl sounded like a whore because of her natural voice? He didn't have the words to describe how pissed he was that Lucy had been forced to live with someone like that. "I've never heard that song before..."

"That's because I wrote it, Short Circuit," Cobra said with a smirk.

"... What the hell is _wrong_ with you?"

Cobra would have normally let out a bark of laughter, but kept it to himself so he wouldn't interrupt Lucy. "It's about the tree out back, dumbass."

"You mean the one you guys got married under?"

Cobra nodded. "Why do you think we bought _this_ property specifically?"

 _Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree?  
Where I told you to run,  
So we'd both be free.  
Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

Lucy sniffled, roughly wiping her eyes with a trembling hand. She returned it to her belly, and closed her eyes tightly to try and ward off the memories that always surfaced when she sang. Cobra had told her more than enough times that her father had been an idiot—a cruel bastard as well, but no less idiotic—for saying what he did. For screwing his daughter up, and ripping away just one more piece of the mother she'd lost. Lucy had loved singing with her mom, but now she couldn't do it without crying.

Layla's voice had been breathtaking and could bring someone to tears if she'd wanted. Lucy had been told that hers was just like her mother's, but her mom didn't sound so... Wrong. Not like Lucy did. Even when she was alone, it only served to remind her of all the times she had tried singing differently, singing higher even though it hurt to strain her voice that way. Lucy had loved it when her mom would sing to her, but the way _she_ sounded... What would her daughter think if she heard it? Would she be ashamed to call Lucy her mother because of it, just like Jude had been ashamed to call her his daughter?

She couldn't find it in her to sing anymore, not when she realized that she was tainting her child with her voice. Lucy buried her face in the pillow beneath her head and let her tears fall unbidden. There was no point in trying to hold them back. She couldn't even sing a lullaby to her baby without feeling like she was doing something wrong... Lucky for her, Cobra decided to keep singing for her while he laid down behind her.

 _Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree?  
Wear a necklace of hope,  
Side by side with me._

Lucy jumped when she felt that familiar tanned arm wrapping around her waist, his hand pushing under the shirt she'd borrowed from his side of the closet to rub slow circles over their baby. Cobra's deep baritone voice filled the air around them, so soft in comparison to how he normally spoke that her breath stuttered as her tears ran anew.

As soon as they smelled her tears, Cobra had ditched Laxus and Gajeel at the door and gone right to Lucy's side. Neither Slayer blamed him for essentially forgetting they were there when Lucy needed him, and seeing him instantly curl around her while he started singing to her had warmed their hearts when they realized just how different he was where his pregnant mate was concerned. Just like no one heard Lucy sing, no one had ever heard Cobra doing it either. Hell, they hadn't even known he _liked_ music to begin with, or that he apparently wrote the shit.

 _Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

Cobra smiled and nuzzled her neck tenderly as he kept singing. He had never really considered music to be something that would interest him until he was locked in prison after Nirvana. It had been the only thing that kept him sane (well, as sane as he could get) and the guards were surprisingly willing to give him books to read on music theory to pass the time. It was how he had come to really understand his Soul Listening magic so fully, because he had been listening to music his entire life without ever realizing it. He finally had a way of describing what he heard.

Still, it hadn't been until he and Lucy took a mission together that he had been forced to sing for the first time in his life. Damn cursed temples, and dark mages with weird kinks. The only way for them to get out of that place had been for someone to sing a song. It was fucking stupid, unless you're a pair of mages that were either completely terrified of singing, or had never done it before. Needless to say, Lucy had been pleasantly surprised when Cobra bit the bullet and started singing, thinking he was making a song up on the spot—he just hadn't told her at the time that he was singing the melody he heard in her soul.

 _Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree?_

Gajeel gently grabbed Laxus' hand and closed the door when Cobra kept singing to Lucy. He winced when there was a stifled sob that his enhanced hearing barely caught, and looked sadly up into his blonde mate's conflicted stormy gaze while they walked to their room on the other side of the house. "What is it?" he whispered.

Laxus stayed silent until they were in their own room, then wrapped his arms around Gajeel's muscular shoulders and nestled his nose in the wild black hair that always tickled his nose while they were in bed. "Blondie's dad was a fucking asshole..."

"Trust me, I know," Gajeel muttered.

"Don't start, Gajeel," Laxus sighed, running his fingers lightly over the Iron Slayer's back as Gajeel tightened his grip on Laxus' waist. "She got over what you did a long ass time ago. I know it was that fuckhole that hired you guys, but things are different now..."

"I know..." Gajeel sighed. After a moment he chuckled softly and said, "You ever realize that Bunny forgave three people that tried to kill her? And now we're the closest ones to her?"

A small smirk pulled at the corner of Laxus' mouth. "Yep," he chuckled. "Mated to someone that tried to kill her twice, one brother that tortured her, and another that almost shattered her when Ever turned her to stone. Blondie's a goddamn angel."

"She's got the worst fucking luck..."

"Nah," Laxus whispered, smiling as he lifted Gajeel's chin and pressed a tender kiss to the piercings in his nose. "I think her luck's pretty damn good. Cobra might be a fucking dildo most of the time, but he can help her. If anyone can do it, it's that mind-reading bastard."

 _Where I told you to run,  
So we'd both be free.  
Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

"I love you, Erik," Lucy sniffled.

"Love you too, beautiful," Cobra whispered. "I'm glad I got to hear you singing." When Lucy shrunk in on herself marginally, Cobra sighed and lifted his hand from her stomach to shift the collar of her shirt to the side. He smiled down at the small patch of deep purple scales on her shoulder, then closed his mouth over it and let his poison seep into her mating mark. When he felt Lucy relaxing into him with a soft moan, he pulled back slightly and whispered, "I love it when you sing. It's just like your soul."

Lucy frowned and turned to look into Cobra's eye, her mouth opening to ask what he meant.

"I mean just that. Your voice is the same as your soul, Lucy. It's beautiful and perfect. Don't ever forget that, okay?"

Lucy sighed and nodded as she laid her head back down on the pillow. She knew Cobra wouldn't lie to her, it was just hard to believe that he was telling the truth after years of having the opposite drilled into her head. Luckily, when you're mate has the ability to hear what you're thinking about, he knows when it's best to just hold you, and when you need to talk. She always loved that about him. "You're home early," she said after a few silent minutes, with Cobra still letting his poison wash over her to help feed the baby.

"We all wanted to get back as soon as possible," Cobra chuckled. "Wasn't too hard anyway, especially when Spiky and Sparky got into an argument in the middle of a fight... I almost feel sorry for the bastards that got caught in the middle of that."

Lucy giggled and rolled her eyes. "Those two are ridiculous sometimes. Think we can head over to the guild tomorrow to see them? I've only been there once since you left, and that was when the Raijinshuu came to pick me up since Bix's babies let me sit on them when I got too tired to keep walking."

Cobra grinned and said, "Glad to see you're taking that bed rest thing so seriously." His poor, amazing wife apparently had a body that hated her—from what Lucy said—and had to be put on bed rest at Porlyusica's insistence. The ancient pink-haired, broom-wielding monster was probably one of Cobra's favorite people to listen in on. She was one big walking contradiction with all of her vehement ranting about hating humans, while secretly loving every second she was able to spend with them. If he hadn't respected her ability to be one of the only people to find a cure for his poison without magic—because there had been a training accident, and Laxus had knocked Cobra out when he saw that Gajeel had been poisoned before he could pull it back out—then the fact that the old crow absolutely fucking adored his mate, and had been over the fucking moon about them being together in the first place, drove that nail in the coffin.

"It sucks not being able to do anything for myself," Lucy sighed, "But as long as I have enough poison, I can still ask Virgo to open her gate when you're not here without risking my magic getting too low."

Cobra hummed and ran his nose along her neck, then lightly kissed just behind her ear. "Well, we can head down there if you want, but your brothers are crashing here tonight." When Lucy quite literally started internally squealing as she tried to hoist herself up and get out of the bed to see them, Cobra chuckled and sent out a stronger wave of poison into the air.

Lucy's eyes rolled back, her breath hitching as more of Cobra's element was sucked right into her. His hands gently gripped her shoulders and settled her back on the bed, and Lucy turned her head to look at him with hungry eyes. Even though the toxic gas was helping their daughter get the nourishment she needed, it still never failed to make Lucy's heart start pounding in her chest as a fresh wave of desire washed through her. She lifted one hand and tangled it in his hair, then forced his lips down to hers while small crimson tendrils still leaked from him.

Cobra growled in response to Lucy's long moan when his tongue plunged into her sweet mouth. He already knew exactly what she wanted, but he had been gone for a week already, and he didn't know if it was alright with how far along she was.

"C'mon, sweetie..." Lucy rasped as she slowly pushed her ass back towards him. "You know what your poison does to me..."

Cobra grinned and lowered his hand to her belly again. "Trust me, beautiful. I know..." No way in hell would he be able to forget that Lucy had gotten him so worked up that he bit her at least a dozen times, and since his body naturally lubricated his teeth with poison she had become the most ravenous, sex-crazed vixen that wouldn't let him out of bed for fucking anything... That day—or maybe it was two days, he couldn't really remember—had resulted in the wonderful little life growing inside of her. Still... "You're still cleared for this?" he asked softly. "You're on bed rest so you don't over-exert yourself."

Lucy grinned and said, "As long as we go slowly, I can have all the orgasms you want to give me... Besides, it's not like I can move a whole lot, otherwise I could cause an earthquake..."

"Hilarious," Cobra deadpanned, only to groan loudly when Lucy pinched the tip of his ear and pulled just hard enough to make his eye roll back. "Fuck, I love you..." His hand slowly moved down to her hip, and he carefully started massaging her while grinding against her ass.

" _Mmm_ … I love you too…" Lucy whimpered when Cobra's hand slid from her hip to her inner thigh, his fingers still rubbing soothing circles into her flesh. She brought his lips to hers again, then harshly nipped at his lower lip. "I need you, Erik," she purred.

Cobra smirked and let out a rumbling growl. "I'm all yours, beautiful. Always have been."

* * *

"Damn, I fucking love your hands," Gajeel groaned.

"That's what I like to hear, babe," Laxus chuckled. "Shit, you're tight tonight…"

"Holy fuck, Laxus… Right there…" Gajeel's eyes rolled back, a long moan bubbling up in his throat. "Harder… Oh, fuck… Just like that…"

Laxus grinned and leaned down to gently nibble on the piercings in Gajeel's ear. "You sound so fucking hot," he whispered. "I wonder though…" He paused and his hands went completely still, his grin widening when Gajeel whimpered. "What happens when you mix metal and lightning?"

"Fuck, Laxus," Gajeel rasped. "Bunny's trying to sleep… You know Cobra's gonna beat our asses if we wake her up…"

"Then you'd better bite that pillow," Laxus growled. "Because I'm _very_ curious now…"

"Son of a—" Gajeel's eyes went wide when he felt the pressure around Laxus increasing, and he buried his face in the pillow beneath him just before the first crackle of electricity zipped through his whole body. A deep growl rolled through him when Laxus started moving his hands again, sending shock after shock through his fingertips that had every bit of flesh he touched humming excitedly. His muscles tensed, the piercings that adorned his lightly tanned flesh increasing the intensity of each subsequent jolt until he was wantonly moaning into the pillow.

"Guess you like it, huh Gajeel?" Laxus chuckled. "How about right… here?"

Gajeel nodded quickly, his teeth clamping down on the pillow as another growl ripped through him. He was so fucking happy that he'd mated with the blonde a year prior. Especially since now Laxus was apparently not as averse to using his lightning while they were together. Gajeel had been the one to initiate the marks between them, so Laxus hadn't needed to send much of his magic into the bite to complete the process. Now, Gajeel was wishing that he'd gotten to feel just how fucking amazing Laxus' lightning felt all over him. Calloused hands smoothed over his back again and again, the jolts slowly dying down until he was only feeling the residual current running through his piercings, and Gajeel finally loosed his grip on the pillow while he panted, "I love you so damn much…"

"Love you more," Laxus whispered, kissing his way over Gajeel's bare shoulders. "Feel better?"

Gajeel nodded slowly, and rolled onto his side when Laxus moved to lie down next to him. "Yep. Best back rub ever," he chuckled, wrapping an arm around the blonde's waist and pulling him closer until their chests were brushing against each other with each slow breath. "I can't believe you told me to bite the fucking pillow…"

"I can't believe you actually did it," Laxus shot back with a cocky grin.

"Shut up," Gajeel grumbled, lightly nipping at Laxus' tattoo and grinning when he pulled a soft groan from his mate. "I don't feel like being poisoned for keeping Bunny up."

Laxus rolled his eyes as he started running his fingers through Gajeel's hair. "If you listened to more than what's going on in our room, you'd know that there's no need for you to worry about that," he laughed. He raised an eyebrow when Gajeel frowned and slightly cocked his head to the side, then brushed his nose along his studded brow. "See? He's the one keeping her up."

"Pretty sure she's keeping _him_ up," Gajeel snickered.

"Yeah, well…" Laxus growled and rolled Gajeel onto his back, pinning his hands to the bed. He looked deeply into the crimson eyes that were heatedly gazing up at him with a wicked grin and lowered his head until their noses were brushing together. "I'd much rather discuss you keeping _me_ up…"

"I wasn't doin' anything this time," Gajeel chuckled. "At least not—Oh shit…" He quickly bit his lips to stifle another moan as Laxus dove down and bit into the golden scales on his chest, feeling his cock twitching to life when those sharp teeth dug into him.

"Bullshit," Laxus whispered. His tongue brushed over the scales in a slow circle, lightning passing from him and into the mark in tender arcs. His lip curled into a snarl when he smelled Gajeel's arousal, that heavy metallic scent he'd grown to love filling his nostrils as it darkened into something that always made his whole body thrum with desire. "You know what that shit does to me…"

"Wh-What… shit?"

"Your _voice_ ," Laxus rasped. "You have no fucking clue how close I was to tearing your goddamn pants off when you started fucking moaning… And then what you said after…" His hips rolled instinctively, forcing his hardened shaft to grind against Gajeel's through their thin pajamas.

"If you can keep me quiet, then do it now," Gajeel whispered quickly, "Otherwise, lemme up and I'll just handle this shit in the shower." The bastard knew just what to do to get him worked up without using the mark on his chest, which could only mean that Laxus wanted Gajeel hard as a fucking rock right then.

When Gajeel started struggling a little, Laxus snarled and bit down on the golden scales again and sent a powerful bolt of lightning through his mouth. His hand shot from holding Gajeel's down to cover the pinned Slayer's mouth just as it opened on a scream of ecstasy, and Laxus shocked him again. And again. "You're really gonna tell me no, Gaj?" he whispered.

Gajeel shook the strong calloused hand away from his mouth. "F-Fuck no," he stuttered. "Just fuck me, Laxus… Please…" His breath hitched when he saw Laxus' nostrils flare before those stormy eyes drew him in and held him captive. He didn't hear or feel the fabric quite literally being torn from his body, nor did he realize that Laxus had pushed his legs apart to start spreading deliciously warm lubricant over him. It wasn't until Gajeel's lips were captured in a tender caress, when his eyes finally fluttered closed, that he felt himself slowly being stretched as Laxus' rigid cock breached his ass.

Laxus groaned softly once he was filling Gajeel with every inch of his shaft. He gently caressed his mate's jaw as their lips separated, a soft smile that was only saved for the red-eyed Slayer in his arms on his face. "You know," he whispered tenderly as he slowly withdrew. "No matter how hard I'm pounding this… _Mmm_ … Sweet ass of yours…" Laxus grinned when Gajeel grabbed onto his shoulders as he slammed back in. "I'll only ever make love to you."

Gajeel moaned into the kiss as Laxus started rolling his hips. "Shit… You're amazing," he whimpered.

"I'm called the Thunder God for a reason," Laxus groaned with a smirk. His hand lifted from Gajeel's jaw, and he saw those beautiful eyes flash with excitement and just a small bit of trepidation when he let his magic cover it in lightning.

Gajeel's eyes widened before rolling back in his head when Laxus lowered his electrified hand and started stroking his shaft in time with each long, powerful thrust into him. He leaned up and roughly clamped his teeth down on Laxus' shoulder, his canines roughly scraping over the Iron scales, a feral growl roaring to life within him as his body willingly accepted everything his mate could dish out. Harder. Faster. Jolt after jolt of electricity was sent through him, forcing his moans and growls to increase in volume. "Y-Yeah you are," Gajeel moaned loudly. "Fuck… You can… _Ohhh_ … Oh, Laxus…"

"That's it, lemme hear you…" Laxus growled, his hips surging forward unexpectedly. He tightly grasped Gajeel's thighs and pushed his legs up until his knees were pressed against the sheets. Without missing a beat, Laxus pounded into him harder than before, his breath stuttering when he felt more than heard each and every pleasured cry of his name that flew from his mate. "Fuck, I love it when you say my name…"

Gajeel grinned and tightly gripped Laxus' unruly blond spiked hair. He ran the twin barbells in this tongue over the shell of Laxus' ear, then growled, "Laxus… I'm gonna cum… " His grin was short-lived, however, when Laxus pulled out and dove down face first into his lap as his legs dropped to the bed. Those perfect lips that had spent countless hours worshipping every inch of his body for the past couple years closed over his throbbing shaft, and Gajeel cried out when he felt two lightning covered fingers pushing back into him. "L-Laxus… Oh fucking shit… Laxus!" he groaned as he started thrusting quickly into the hot mouth that always took his breath away.

Laxus moaned around Gajeel's swelling shaft, sending out stronger currents with his fingers as he pushed Gajeel right to the edge. Laxus lifted his head and opened his mouth while his other hand started quickly stroking the panting pierced mage, and he was suddenly overwhelmed by the sight of Gajeel's half-lidded eyes and the feral pull at his upper lip.

Gajeel's breath stuttered when he looked down to see so much love shining Laxus' steely gaze, but it was the devastating grin that spread across the blond's face that finally did him in. Between one second and the next, lightning was arcing between Laxus' lips and across Gajeel's swollen tip. His breath rushed out in a loud cry as a powerful burst of electricity ran through him when Laxus curled his fingers inside, and his head flew back as his release surged up the length of his shaft.

Laxus groaned as he swallowed it all down, squeezing every last drop of Gajeel's climax into his mouth, then nearly pounced on the panting mage to finally ease the ache in his own cock. He drove into Gajeel without warning, roughly slanting his mouth over his mate's as he picked up the previously mind-numbing pace. "I'm not _nearly_ finished with you, babe," he growled with a feral grin, groaning when Gajeel gave him a matching grin before yanking him back down into a steamy kiss.

* * *

Cobra gently closed his mouth over Lucy's spasming sex, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth when he heard his name fall from her in a shaky whimper. The tip of his tongue dipped into her core, pulling the last remnants of her sweet climax from her, then he began slowly kissing his way up her body. "I love you so much, beautiful," he whispered as his hands slid over her stomach.

When he was high enough for her to reach, Lucy lazily sifted her fingers through Cobra's hair as she watched him lavish every inch of her swollen belly with affection. "I love you too, handsome," she whispered back. It never failed to amaze her how tender he could be in moments like this. When they had met, he was more abrasive than industrial grade sandpaper, but she had gained the privilege of seeing the softer side of him once he'd told her his real name all those years ago. Still, Cobra surprised her every day with just how much of a sweetheart he really was.

"Only for you," he chuckled as he looked up into those deep honey eyes. He paused and his smile widened when he felt their daughter's foot kick him in the chin. "And you too, my little angel," he whispered tenderly, lightly nipping at the spot where her foot still was.

"Don't do that," Lucy giggled, "She just stopped kicking, and you're gonna get her all riled up again."

"Not my fault she's a fighter like her mom," Cobra shrugged. "She's even got your signature move down, Baby Kick."

Lucy shook her head and lowered her free hand to her stomach, a contented sigh slipping past her lips when his closed over it. "I think you mean Noxia Kick, hun."

Cobra froze and slowly lifted his head to gape at Lucy. "You… You finally picked a name?" he asked with a wide grin.

"Yep," Lucy answered with a matching grin. "Noxia Autumn Heartfilia."

Cobra chuckled and leaned back down to run his nose over Lucy's belly again. "Hear that? Mommy finally decided on your name, Nox." He paused and glanced at Lucy, then conspiratorially whispered, "Yeah, I know your name is 'Noxious' in Latin… Mommy's silly sometimes."

Lucy pouted and flicked his ear, then squeaked when he playfully nipped at her belly again. "That's because of _you_ , silly," she giggled. "She's _always_ begging for more poison."

"I'm surprised you didn't get on me about the nickname."

Lucy shrugged. "You never use anyone's name, sweetie. And Nox isn't half bad."

Cobra chuckled and finished his slow ascent up her body until his lips were hovering over hers. "You know me so well," he whispered.

"Didn't you know? I'm a mind reader," Lucy teased. Her breath stuttered when she saw that mischievous smile that always meant that he had something up his sleeve spreading across his face. "Wh-What are you planning?" she whispered breathlessly.

"Oh, don't you know?" Cobra crooned. "I thought you were a _mind reader_ …" He chuckled and propped himself up on his knees between her legs, then carefully hooked his arm under one leg and rolled Lucy onto her side. "Comfy?"

Lucy nodded and moaned softly when she felt Cobra's arousal brushing against her. "Comfy as I can get with our little chestburster here."

Cobra snorted and shook his head. "You and that damn movie," he chuckled. "We're never watching Alien again…"

"No need to," Lucy replied with a grin. She pointed at her stomach and said, "We'll get a reenactment in a month. A nice, live show!"

"You're twisted, Lucy…" Cobra whispered. "A genuine psycho."

"But that's what you love about me, Erik," Lucy rasped as he ground himself against her slit. "I'm _your_ psycho."

Cobra bit his lip and slowly pushed into her sex. " _Fuck_ ," he groaned, "Yeah you are." He gave several short, slow strokes, pushing further into her core each time. His eye raked over her, devouring every mouthwatering inch of her perfect body once he was nestled in her sex completely. Her blonde hair fanned out around her on the pillow, the blush on her cheeks matching her kiss-swollen lips that were parted on a gasp. Lucy's breasts had—much to her dismay and his _immensely_ secret joy—grown at least a full cup size, her previously light pink nipples having darkened over the past months to a dusty rose color. There was a fullness to her face, arms, and thighs that she hadn't had before getting pregnant, and he didn't think he could love that bit of extra cushion any more. Then there was, of course, the sheer size of her belly. Cobra had never found a pregnant woman attractive before Lucy, but he was sure it had everything to do with the fact that it was _his_ child growing inside of her, and that he was pretty sure Lucy was incapable of looking horrible. Even with her hair matted from sleep and a trail of dried drool on her chin, she was gorgeous to him. Cobra groaned and smoothed his hands over her legs as he kept a slow pace with her, rocking his hips once he was fully buried to push just a little further and brush against the spot that always made her see stars. "You're so beautiful," he whispered.

Lucy smiled and moaned, the flush across her cheeks deepening when she saw Cobra looking over her body again and again. She knew he always thought she was beautiful, and he made sure to tell her just that every chance he got, but the sheer size of her stomach tended to make her a little self-conscious concerning her appearance. Call it hormones, or just her being superficial and missing how his hands wrapped around her tiny waist, but Lucy wished their daughter had already been born so she could get her body back to normal. That way, she could be the sexy woman Cobra had married, and he could silently rub it in everyone's faces—like she knew he loved to do—that he had the prettiest girl around on his arm.

Cobra frowned and carefully leaned down, moving one hand to gently knead Lucy's full breast while he brought his lips to hers. "I already do," he whispered. When Lucy looked at him questioningly, Cobra groaned as he rolled his hips a little faster. "Doesn't matter how big you get, you're always gonna be sexy to me."

"You're just say—"

Cobra stilled and lifted his head to glare at her. "I'm not just saying it to make you feel better," he said slowly. "I've got no reason to lie to you." When Lucy looked away, he sighed and kissed her cheek. "I'm serious. You're sexy as hell, downright fucking edible, and seeing you without a stitch of clothing on _still_ makes me want to pin you to the ground and fuck your brains out. You're more beautiful now than when we met."

"H-How?" Lucy whispered, feeling tears welling in her eyes.

Cobra chuckled as his hand slid over every voluptuous curve of her body until his fingers splayed across her stomach once more. "How could you not be when you're gonna make me a dad?" he asked softly. "No way in hell could that make you any less beautiful, Lucy. You're the one that's making us a family. And every bit of you that you think is fat or gross? I fucking _love_ it."

"… You do?"

"Mm-hmm," Cobra hummed while nipping at her jaw and rocking his hips again. "Damn right I do. You're my sexy little wife, and you always will be. You're beautiful inside and out. Every damn bit of you. Your soul, your eyes, your smile, every inch of your body from your deliciously perky tits down to your chubby little toes. I love _everything_ about you. Besides…" He grinned and lifted his head to look into her eyes again. "I wasn't attracted to how you look first. It was that amazing song in your soul, and how your mind works that made me fall for you."

Lucy moaned loudly when Cobra pulled back and carefully plunged into her with a little more force. "S-So… _Mmm_ … My body's just a… Oh, fuck… J-Just a perk?"

"Exactly," Cobra growled. "I fell in love with who you are inside, not your body. That came later... About five seconds after I heard your soul singing."

Lucy smiled and blinked away the fresh wave of tears that wanted to spill over. Leave it to Cobra to put her fears to rest with just the right words. She hadn't known what he could possibly say to make her feel better about how she looked, but it seemed he did. "Hold me, Erik…"

Cobra grinned and slowly shifted the leg that was draped over his arm so Lucy was lying on her side, then growled, "Up on your knees, beautiful."

Lucy's breath hitched and she let Cobra help her sit up, then turned and held onto the headboard. She whimpered with need as his hands danced over the backs of her thighs while he spread her legs just a little further, biting her lips to try and quell the inferno that had begun raging in her once more. His shaft brushed over her slit, teasing her dripping sex and forcing another loud moan from her lips. Again and again, he teased her, until Lucy reached back and gripped his forearm, her nails digging into his flesh. "Erik," she rasped, "Please..."

Cobra chuckled and lined himself up at her entrance, then groaned when Lucy pushed back, her sex greedily enveloping his aching shaft. He leaned forward, and brushed his nose along her shoulder while he rocked further into her, grinning when he felt her sex ripple around him. One thing was for certain, he absolutely loved Lucy's libido—something that had thankfully not dropped out with all of the changes she had been going through. If anything, the woman that had captured his heart was more insatiable than ever before, and he was sure she wouldn't let him out of the house if she actually had the energy and stamina to fuck him as much as she really wanted.

Long, languid strokes had Lucy's head swimming with desire. She tightened her grip on the headboard when his hands wound around her and started teasing her breasts. His thumbs brushed over the rosy tips, hardening them even further just as Lucy's resolve to keep herself still began to waver. Her moans rose in volume and pitch until she was finally pushing back to meet him thrust for thrust. "Oh, Erik! More!"

Cobra's eye widened when he heard Lucy's soul growling, a deeper bass than he'd ever heard from her before starting to sound out. "Fuck, that's sexy as hell," he growled in response. He didn't want to push it and end up hurting her or the baby, so instead of slamming into her like he normally would have, Cobra moved his hands lower. One gently caressed her stomach while his other hand dove between her legs, his fingers quickly seeking out the sensitive little bundle of nerves. It really didn't take much to find his goal, especially since she had apparently gotten Gajeel to give her a hood piercing a month before she ran into him the first time under their tree. A low growl rumbled through him when Lucy arched her back and tried to roll her hips, and he planted himself firmly in her sex. "Careful, beautiful," he moaned.

Lucy panted and screamed his name as he started teasing her clit while keeping his thrusts slow and gentle. She was downright begging him to just fuck her already. Part of her knew that he wouldn't, and while a darker side tried to surface and say it was because he didn't find her attractive anymore, the rest of her was fully reminded about the little life she needed to protect when Cobra nipped at her shoulder again.

"Oh god, Lucy..." Cobra grunted when her sex started slowly tightening around him, gritting his teeth as he tried to hold back.

"Cobra, just fuck me already!" Lucy nearly shouted. She jumped when there were a loud roar that echoed through the house, then realized just what Laxus and Gajeel must have been doing. _That_ was what she wanted, to have Cobra plowing into her with reckless abandon so she was screaming his name wildly into the heavens. For him to really lose control with her. "Please!"

His eye widened in shock at that name passing her lips, and then a wide and wicked grin pulled at his lips when he heard her running through everything she had read about third trimester sex. His hand slid up from between her legs, and met with his other on her stomach, then he bared his teeth and growled, "Cobra, huh? How about you show your brothers how a mate is _supposed_ to scream?"

Lucy furrowed her brow in confusion, then threw her head back when Cobra decided to live up to his moniker, his teeth striking her mating mark so quickly she hardly had time to figure out what he had been talking about. Needless to say, Lucy's moans got louder and louder until she was quite literally shrieking his name in ecstasy. More of his poison pumped into her than she'd ever experienced at one time before, and Lucy felt her entire body beginning to tighten up in response. "F-Fuck... Fuck. Fuck, fuck... E-Erik... I'm... I'm… OH FUCK!"

Cobra growled and bit down into the scales even harder, feeling them shifting slightly as he started a much more intense pace than before. Porlyusica said they would need to take it slow, but what Lucy had apparently forgotten to mention was that he could technically still bang her brains out as long as he was careful about her stomach. Those stories about him poking the baby in the head and causing brain damage, among others, were just that. Stories. Which meant all he needed to do was give her some more poison to make sure any potential damage that could have been caused was instantly healed. "Trust me, baby," Cobra groaned as he let her shoulder go for a moment, "Wait 'til that poison sets in…"

Lucy reached back and tangled her hand in Cobra's hair, then forced his mouth down to her mark again as he started pounding into her sex. The sounds of skin slapping filled the room along with the smell of sex and his poison. Her cries of pleasure bounced off the walls, mingling in the air with Cobra's low growls and curses. Suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch inside of her, Lucy's body began to heat up while it felt as though everything around her slowed to a crawl. Her skin became hypersensitive, every feathery brush of his lips and tongue over her mark, how his fingers tenderly held her stomach, the ferocity of his teeth and rumbling chest, and how her core repeatedly tried to pull him back in with each withdrawal, had Lucy's eyes going wide and her breath stalling in her lungs. She was able to _feel_ the way Cobra's shaft swelled within her, finally noticing how his breathing changed as he sat on the cusp of his release, how his hands began trembling when they moved up to tease her breasts again. All sense of sound died out around her, until Lucy was only able to hear her own heaving breaths and pounding heart. She couldn't hear what Cobra was whispering to her—although she could feel his breath fanning out over her ear in harsh pants—or what she was responding with; she didn't even really know if she was saying anything at all. He picked up in speed and finally slammed into her one last time, and the release that Lucy had been running towards finally reared its head and tossed her right over the edge without any other warning.

Cobra couldn't have been happier with her response to that particular kind of poison, especially when she started screaming even louder than before as it took effect. He held off as long as possible, but hearing just what the venomous bite was doing to her from her soul and in how she eventually lost the ability to articulate any words whatsoever made him fucking desperate to feel her sex sucking every last bit of his release into her. As his roar finally died down along with Lucy's own climactic scream, he carefully pulled her back into his lap as he sat down on his heels as he continued pulsing in her core.

Lucy's head fell back limply onto Cobra's shoulder, a lazily smile on her face while the poison faded—finally having been completely absorbed by her body through the bond their mating had created. His hands rubbed slow circles over her thighs as he tenderly nipped his way from her shoulder to her ear, and Lucy slowly reached down to pull them up onto her swollen belly again.

Cobra smiled when her fingers laced with his, and he pressed one last kiss just behind her ear before moving to lay both of them down. He couldn't help but chuckle when Lucy quite literally threw the mountain of pillows off of the bed, and watched as his glowing mate carefully rolled over to face him. "I love you, beautiful," he whispered happily.

Lucy beamed at him. "We love you too, Daddy," she whispered back, giggling when he positively lit up at that small switch of a pronoun. She sighed contentedly when he sat up to pull the blanket up over them, pausing to press a soft kiss to her stomach.

Cobra laughed when their daughter gave a series of kicks right against his lips, then lightly nuzzled Lucy's stomach. "I love you too, Nox. Time for bed, okay?"

When Cobra laid back down and pulled Lucy into his arms—with her adjusting so she could comfortably lay her head on his chest—she rolled her eyes when the baby rolled over again calmed down. "She's gonna be a daddy's girl, you know that right?" she teased with a yawn. "She's already listening to you over me."

"Of course she is," Cobra chuckled. "I'm fucking awesome."

"Yes, dear. Yes you are."

"Don't sound so enthusiastic there, Bright Eyes."

Lucy grinned sleepily up at her husband. "Shut your gob and go to sleep, handsome. Mommy's tired."

"Ah, such wonderful parenting," Cobra crooned, snorting when Lucy poked that single ticklish spot she had discovered on his side. "Get some good rest, beautiful," he whispered, pressing a tender kiss to her hair, "I'm home now."

* * *

Gajeel and Laxus sat on the back porch of Cobra and Lucy's home, watching as the young couple sat under the tree that had been the cause of their happiness—at least, according to Lucy. She apparently viewed it as a source of good luck for them, since everything important had happened beneath its branches, both coincidental and intentional. Cobra's arms wound around her waist as she leaned back against his chest, and he instantly started rubbing slow circles over the little girl that was kicking her ass.

"Bunny," Gajeel chuckled, "How's the chestburster doin'?"

Lucy grinned and said, "Noxia's doing just fine, Studly. Her incubation's almost done, so I think we should be able to recreate that scene soon."

"Any word back from Sigourney Weaver?" Laxus asked, laughing when Cobra rolled his eye.

"Not yet," Cobra sighed in mock defeat. "I heard she took that role in 'Baby Mama' a little too seriously, and now she's become a damn factory."

Lucy laughed again and shook her head, then leaned down to whisper to her stomach (knowing full well that all three Slayers could hear her), "See? I told you Daddy likes those movies…"

"No," Cobra grunted. "That movie was fucking horrible…"

"You were laughing…"

"Because Tina Fey's a fucking genius."

"Touché," Lucy laughed. "You liked '27 Dresses' though."

"No," Cobra said slowly, "I liked 'Knocked Up'. Same chick, funnier male lead."

"What about 'Pretty Woman'?"

"The one about the hooker and the dude that shoved a gerbil in his ass? Yeah… No."

"Dude, just admit it… You like chick flicks," Laxus chuckled. When he got an answering one-eyed glare and a snarl, he donned his signature cocky grin and draped an arm over Gajeel's shoulders. "The stud muffin over here fucking loves them. Nothing wrong with watching 'Dirty Dancing' a few times..."

"He's also probably the sappiest son of a bitch I've ever met," Cobra shot back. "I have no idea how many times I've heard him—OW! What the fuck, you pinchy little shit?!"

"Gajeel's thoughts are his and his alone, regardless of whether or not _you_ can hear them," Lucy said with a frown. When Cobra sighed and shook his head incredulously at her she smiled up at him, then turned to look at Gajeel to see his hand covering his face and his ears burning bright red. "Gajy?"

"Yeah, Bunny…"

"Wanna have a marathon later? Just us?" Lucy asked sweetly. When Gajeel slowly peeked between his fingers to look at her, her smile widened. "Pretty please? I'd rather watch chick flicks with someone who _wants_ to be there with me than forcing Mr. Sourpuss here to do it."

Gajeel rolled his eyes and smirked over at the sweet blonde. Leave it to her to make that one quirk of his not seem like such a big deal. "You got it, Chubby Bunny," he answered.

"Hey, don't call my wife fat, asshole," Cobra snarled.

"I didn't call her fat," Gajeel laughed. "Didn't she tell you how she got the nickname in the first place?"

"You made her dance in a bunny costume," Laxus said with a frown. "Everyone knows that."

Lucy laughed and shook her head. "No! That was a couple days after he started calling me that!"

"Seriously?"

"Yep! Gajeel walked me home after he joined the guild and apologized for what happened," Lucy said happily. "So, I invited him inside and we ended up playing Chubby Bunny with the three bags of marshmallows I'd miraculously hidden from Natsu."

"I still can't fucking believe you beat me," Gajeel said. "But that's been our inside joke this whole time… And it's _why_ I made her dance in the costume."

"You're fucking kidding," Cobra whispered incredulously. "How the fuck…"

"… Did you manage that?" Laxus finished.

"I'm part chipmunk, apparently. I think it's on my mom's side," Lucy answered proudly before the entire group burst out into a fit of laughter.

Cobra nuzzled Lucy's neck tenderly as his laughter died down, and he pulled in a breath full of their combined scents from her skin. Her soul was humming so sweetly right then that he could have easily fallen asleep listening to it. He probably would have too, if it hadn't been for the muted high-pitched trilling that he started to pick up. It was different from everything he'd ever heard from her, and the more he focused on it, the more he realized that it was a melody all its own. It just so happened so harmonize with Lucy's extremely well. "Holy fuck," he whispered.

Lucy raised an eyebrow and slowly turned in Cobra's arms to look up at him, only to find him staring at her stomach with his single eye nearly bugging out of his head. "Erik?" she whispered worriedly, "What's—"

"No… Fucking… Way…"

Laxus and Gajeel froze and turned to stare at Cobra, then Laxus said, "What's up, man?"

"Lucy… Baby…" Cobra grinned and looked up into the deep, caring eyes of the woman he loved. "I can hear her… Holy shit, it's fucking beautiful…"

"You can hear—OH!" Lucy's eyes went wide as she looked down at her belly, then back up to Cobra's grinning face. "What does she sound like?"

"A piccolo," Cobra whispered happily as he looked back down at Lucy's belly. "Like a little bird, just chirping away in the morning before she learns how to fly." He closed his eye and lightly tapped her stomach, his grin widening and a watery laugh spilling from him when Noxia's soul chirruped happily. "Baby… I love you so fucking much…"

"I love you too, sweetie," Lucy said as she tucked herself into his chest, gently reaching up to wipe away the tears that had started falling down his cheek.

Cobra's eye opened and he looked hopefully at Lucy. "Will you do us a favor? Please?" he whispered. When Lucy smiled and nodded, he said, "Sing her a song…"

Laxus and Gajeel watched as the giddy smile left Lucy in an instant, her face dropping into a blank mask that honestly scared the pants off of them. Cobra seemed to notice it as well, but he gave no indication of it making any difference in his request. Then again, maybe this was how Lucy always looked when asked to sing.

"… No…"

"Just for her," Cobra said quickly. "Just our little girl. Me and the guys can go inside… Please?"

"… Why?"

"Because…"

"Because _why_?!"

Cobra winced when Lucy screeched in his ear, but he held back any snarky comments when he heard her soul's distant wailing from her past welling up. He frowned when the piccolo that was their little girl started to decrescendo, and started rubbing circles on Lucy's belly as he whispered, "No, it's okay… Shh… Mommy's not upset with you…"

"What?" Lucy sniffled.

"Sing for her, Lucy… She likes it…" Cobra pleaded. "She started humming that song from last night, and now you're upset and she's getting quiet… Please…"

Lucy frowned and looked down at her stomach, gently placing her hand over Cobra's. "You… You want Mommy to sing?" she whispered. A small smile broke out on her face when Noxia rolled over and started kicking even harder than before.

"She's humming it again…" Cobra chuckled. "Go on."

Lucy sheepishly looked up at Laxus and Gajeel, then took a deep breath and raised her other hand to beckon them closer. "Come on, guys. Family cuddles," she said, her voice trembling a little.

"Nothing to be worried about, sis," Laxus said as he sat down with his back to the trunk, just next to Cobra.

"Spark Plug's right, Bunny," Gajeel said, sitting between Laxus' legs and reaching over to hold Lucy's trembling hand. "We heard you last night. It was fucking beautiful."

"Never heard anything like it."

"Like a choir of goddamn angels just crawled up inside of you and decided to pop out right fucking then!"

Lucy giggled when Cobra reached over and smacked Gajeel in the head, then backhanded Laxus just for good measure. "You guys… You really didn't hate it?"

"Not a chance in hell, Bunny."

"The only thing I hated was that your husband is surprisingly good at writing music," Laxus grumbled. "But, no. I loved hearing you sing."

"See, beautiful?" Cobra whispered tenderly. "Our family loves your voice. And _this_ little one…" He paused and tapped his fingers lightly on Lucy's stomach again, grinning when Noxia kicked and her soul trilled sweetly. "Well, she's already one of your biggest fans."

Lucy blushed and looked at the three most important men in her life. They had all been enemies of hers at one point or another, but now she didn't know what she would do without them. They were her whole world—her husband, and her two 'big brothers'—and there wasn't anything she wouldn't do for them. "I love you guys," she whispered, laughing softly when Laxus reached up and brushed her tears away.

"We love you too, Blondie," Laxus chuckled. "Oh, and you and Gajeel can count me in on your marathon. No way am I getting stuck with your husband at the guild."

"Right," Cobra drawled, his voice laced with sarcasm, "Because I'm just gonna leave her here when I've been gone for a damn week."

"So… All four of us for a girls' night of movies?" Lucy giggled. "Are you sure you guys don't wanna do horror again?"

"Mmm," Laxus hummed playfully. "Nope, we're just tagging along on this shit. Chick flicks all the way."

"What are we starting with?" Gajeel asked.

When Lucy shrugged, Cobra rolled his eye and said, "I've got a request…"

"Shoot," Lucy giggled.

"Sandra Bullock. She's got some funny fucking movies…"

Laxus laughed and nodded. "Got a point on that one. 'Blind Side' was surprisingly good."

Cobra nodded. "True, but 'Miss Congeniality' is funnier… Especially the doughnuts in her dress… Priceless…"

"There's that new one that just came out," Gajeel added with a grin, "What was it called? It had that one chick from 'Bridesmaids' that shit in a sink…"

"That's 'The Heat'," Laxus chuckled. "We were gonna watch it when we got home."

"That's goin' on the list," Cobra nodded sagely.

Lucy giggled and rested her head against Cobra's chest while the guys started planning out their movie lineup for later that day. She looked up at the leave above them, watching as they swayed in the gentle summer breeze that brushed by. Her life couldn't have turned out more perfect, and it had everything to do with the three men and the little baby inside of her that made up her family. She started humming softly, not realizing that the guys had stopped talking, and eventually started to sing for the first time in years without worrying about what she sounded like.

 _Are you, are you  
Coming to the tree?  
Wear a necklace of hope,  
Side by side with me.  
Strange things did happen here  
No stranger would it be  
If we met at midnight  
In the hanging tree._

* * *

 **Alright! I know, right at the last minute… But, I made it! Haha! I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. It was fighting me a little bit, and then there was the issue of having schoolwork and a family to deal with on top of trying to get this out to you all… But, it's done! :D**

 **Yet again. Tons of thanks to _LittlePrincessNana_ for supporting my struggle on this one! I love you, Triplet!**

 **Here are the links for the music in this story (YouTube):**

- _The Hanging Tree._ watch?v=F3hTW9e20d8  
-Noxia's Soul: _Tweet for Solo Piccolo._ watch?v=kc8WZbAWE1w

 ** _Tomorrow's Prompt:_**

 ** _Day 7: Journey._**

 **So! Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys!**

 **~~GemNika.**


	8. Journey to the Past

**A/N: Welcome to the final day for CoLu week! It's been one great week, and I'm so glad you guys have taken the time to read my entries for it!  
**

 **(I've editted this as much as possible, and can't do it again lol. I don't have the time to read over 30k again today, so please forgive any errors you find!)**

 **Without further ado, I give you the super happy ending to a wonderful week of CoLu love...**

 **Day 7: Journey**

 **A small note of backstory for this: This is an AU. Cobra was never chosen to join the Oracion Seis by Brain, and was instead left in the Tower of Heaven. Enjoy.**

* * *

 ** _Journey to the Past_**

* * *

 _Heart don't fail me now  
Courage don't desert me_

* * *

Two nurses rushed into the room when the patient's heart monitor flat-lined, a third at the nurses' station just down the hall paged the on-call doctor, and a fourth rushed by with the defibrillation cart. What none of them had anticipated was for the patient that had been unconscious for the past three days to suddenly tackle one of the nurses and hold his own intravenous needle to her temple while his arm wrapped around her throat from behind.

"Where the fuck am I?! What did you people do to me?!" he roared, ignoring the pain bursting through his body with every breath he took.

"P-Please don't hurt m-me," the nurse pleaded, whimpering when his arm tightened around her throat and the needle pressed more insistently against her flesh.

"Answer the goddamn question!"

"You're in a hospital," came a gentle and soothing voice from the doorway. "No one here is going to hurt you."

He looked up to see a woman in her mid-thirties wearing scrubs and a pristine white lab coat, a stethoscope draped around her neck and a pair of black wing-tipped glasses over deep blue eyes. "I don't fucking know that," he sneered, growling ferociously when the doctor took a slow step forward.

"You were found on the edge of town," the doctor said, slowly bringing her hands up to show the patient that she wasn't trying to harm him. "A good Samaritan brought you to this hospital three days ago. I will answer all of your questions, but I must ask you to release Anabelle and return to your bed."

He narrowed his eyes at her, hissing in pain when the muscles on the right side of his face pulled uncomfortably. "Give me your word that I can go free," he said through tightly clenched teeth. He listened in on her thoughts and when he found no form of deceit from the woman, simply a purely clinical evaluation of the scenario, he nodded and let go of the nurse named Anabelle before slowly making his way back to the bed he'd woken up in.

"Alright, first thing's first," the doctor said as she ushered the nurses out of the room and closed the door to keep the prying eyes of other, less professional, members of the hospital staff from gawking at the man on the bed. She sighed and walked further into the room, pulling his chart from the foot of the bed. "Can you tell me what your name is?"

"Why the fuck do you need to know?" he sneered.

"Because, young man, you're listed here as a John Doe. Aside from needing to update this file now that you're awake, I need to evaluate you before you can be released."

 _'He shouldn't even be up and moving around just yet. It's safe to assume he's a mage if he's this resilient. Although, he could still be suffering from brain damage. We should probably do an MRI to—'_

He snorted derisively and rolled his eyes, hissing in pain when half of his face was awash in pain. When the doctor made a move to come closer, he snarled at her. "You're not putting me in a goddamn metal deathtrap just to look at my brain, you twit." When her eyes widened only slightly in surprise, the rest of her face remaining stoic, he smirked and added, "And yes, I'm a mage."

"Alright, sir. If this evaluation is sufficient, then—"

"Then I can get the fuck outta here. Good."

The doctor blinked, then started to write something on his chart. "Your name?"

"Erik."

"Your full name, sir."

"That _is_ my full name," he answered while leaning back against the pillows. He sighed and shook his head. "Let's speed this along alright? I don't know my date of birth; I never have. I don't have family or friends that can take care of me when I leave here. No, I won't tell you where I was born, or what my magic is, because I still don't fucking trust you. And the year is X782."

Her eyes slowly rose from the clipboard in her hands. "Erik, what year did you say?"

"X782, why?"

"It's X795…"

* * *

 _Don't turn back now that we're here  
People always say_  
 _Life is full of choices_

* * *

Erik looked down at the contents of the box curiously as he sat on the hospital bed. The clothing he'd come to the hospital in was mostly in tatters, with splotches of dried blood all over it. He could tell that it was his based on the holes that were burned through it, since their placement matched the bandages that had been applied to his body while he'd been unconscious. After finding out that he'd essentially lost the last thirteen years of his life, far too many tests from that pesky ass doctor, and his refusal to let them poke or prod at him any longer, he was now faced with trying to find a clue as to where the hell he'd been that he'd gotten so fucked up in the first place. Or even something about what he'd been up to for over a decade.

When he'd gone to the bathroom after talking with the doctor, Erik had taken one look in the mirror, and only grew more confused. He definitely looked older, but not a whole thirteen years. His maroon hair was a few inches longer than he usually kept it, his tanned skin a shade darker—meaning he'd spent quite a bit of time out in the sun. He had more muscle than he remembered, his hands were rougher than they had been while he was a slave in the Tower, and he had a few more scars across his torso that he could assume were from fights. He still had the same pointed ears he'd been born with, the same neutral scowl on his face. But his eye… They had apparently been incapable of saving it when he was brought in, so now he was left with a scar (thank you, Dragon Slaying magic for speeding up his healing) that closed his right eye over.

Turning his attention back to the box, Erik set the clothes off to the side and pulled out a simple black leather wallet. He opened it up and saw that he had several jewel notes, a receipt for some café in town, and a single picture. He carelessly dropped the wallet to his lap when he pulled the picture out, and felt something leap excitedly deep within his soul while he looked at it. There was only one person in the photo, but she was absolutely gorgeous. _'Oh please tell me I actually know who this woman is,'_ he thought absently, his jaw dropping open slightly while he took in the bikini-clad body with a head of nearly glowing golden hair. From what he could tell, she was sitting at a lake near a waterfall with the sun shining down on her lightly sun-kissed skin.

Dangerous curves that had his mouth watering.

A tiny waist that was begging for his arms to wrap around it.

A chest that barely fit in the small purple triangles of material.

She was leaning back on her hands with her long legs stretched out in front of her. Even though the sight of her body was more than enough to keep him hard for hours, it was her face that took his breath away. A pair of large, brown eyes were glimmering with happiness while she looked at the camera, her pink lips pulled into a mischievous smile with a small portion of her lower lip pulled between her teeth, and a light flush across her cheeks. Her damp hair fell in long waves down to just below her breasts, looking as though she had just finished drying it, and framing that angelic face of hers so perfectly that he almost believed she wasn't real.

 _'No way in hell could someone this beautiful really exist.'_

But the proof was there. If not in the fact that he had a picture of her in his hand, then the echo of a memory in his soul. There was something about her that just called to him, to his very soul. He knew her somehow, and based on the picture in his hand he could only hope that it was more than just as an acquaintance. Erik suddenly had even more of a reason to find out what he'd lost, because if someone like her was in his life in _any_ capacity, he really fucking wanted to get back to that.

With renewed determination, he placed the photo back in his wallet then pulled out the last item in the box. A set of keys. There were only two keys on the small ring, along with what looked like a keycard that had an address printed on it in case it was found, and a keychain of a purple snake with little green eyes. Erik's eye went wide when he saw the snake, his heart clenching painfully when he realized that the hospital staff hadn't said anything about a giant purple snake being found with him.

 _'Cubellios… What happened to her?'_

She should have been with him, just like she had been since he was a little kid in the Tower. That snake had been the only friend he'd had once the other slave children that he'd befriended in his cell disappeared. Macbeth, Sorano, Sawyer, and Richard. They were taken away, and he never saw them again. Cubellios had been the reason he'd gotten away from the Tower in the first place, since she had helped to poison the guards with a bite so he could sneak away from that island.

Had he found those other four kids during that blank period of his memory? Were they able to reconnect? Had they died in that place?

Erik gripped the keys tightly, grinding his teeth together as more and more questions piled up. He'd been told that he was being discharged, since they couldn't keep him there any longer without him trying to bust his way out. He'd been given a plain white shirt and a pair of sweatpants to replace the clothing that had been destroyed. Luckily, his boots were still intact. He looked at the keycard and let out a heavy sigh. The address printed on it was a start, now he just had to figure out where the hell it was at.

* * *

 _No one ever mentions fear  
Or how the world can seem so vast  
On a journey to the past_

* * *

The door closed silently behind him once Erik flipped the switch on the wall just inside. An apartment. The address on that keycard had led him to a tall building near the center of the town the hospital was in. Lucky for him, he supposed. He could only assume that he had been trying to get back to this place, or even to the hospital itself, when he had finally collapsed from his injuries. Since he had refused to tell the hospital staff that he had a lacrima implanted in him, they hadn't known that he could ingest poison to heal faster. He was starving, not for normal food since he had eaten before being discharged, but for something of the toxic variety. Still, he needed to get a look around the place first to make sure it was secure.

The first thing that caught his attention was the whisper of a scent that was mixed with his own covering the entire apartment. It was faint, as though the owner hadn't been there in months, but it was everywhere. Morning dew and daisies. He closed his only working eye and took a deep breath as a memory niggled at the back of his mind, skirting around the edges of his consciousness like a little tease. That scent was so relaxing, he just wanted to drown in it.

Opening his eye again, Erik made his way to the living room from the entryway. There was a kitchen off to the right with a breakfast bar acting as a divider between the two rooms, a hallway on the left, and a large sliding glass door covered with blinds that led to the balcony. The walls were a soft cream color, the furniture perfectly matched with a plush mocha colored couch and loveseat, a rich chestnut coffee table, and a lacrima television mounted on the wall. There was one whole wall covered in floor-to-ceiling shelves, mostly filled with books. Only a few were actually used for anything else, and it instantly drew his attention to it.

He seriously felt like an intruder, creeping around the place as silently as possible as though he shouldn't be there, searching through belongings that he couldn't remember. Everything was so foreign to him, but he knew that he'd been here before simply by how ingrained his own scent was in the cool air. Erik took hesitant steps toward the shelves, skimming the titles of the books, finding two whole shelves full of movies—mostly horror or thrillers based on the unfamiliar titles—and then little odds and ends. There was another picture of the blonde woman in a simple silver frame, surrounded by a downright freaky group of—well, not necessarily _people_ —individuals. A huge bull, a man-goat, a maid in chains, a woman in a sheep costume, a ginger-haired man in a suit. Her arms wrapped around the maid's and sheep-girl's waists, holding them close as if they were her sisters. He would have believed it was some sort of costume party if it wasn't for the little snowman that was sitting in her lap, or the floating cross that was snoring off to the side. Or the floating blue-haired mermaid that was being held by a half-man, half-scorpion with white and red hair. Or the bird that had a compass on its head. Honestly, the list could go on and on. The frame was a brushed silver of sorts, adorned with at least a dozen clusters of stars, with an inscription running across the top of it.

 _'I've loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.'_

 _'What the hell kind of shit is this?'_ he wondered, furrowing his brow in confusion. The woman looked a couple years younger than the picture he had in his wallet, but she was still absolutely radiant. Especially with her body only covered by a black tube top and a light pink miniskirt, and her hair pulled into low pigtails. She wasn't wearing a costume, as far as he could tell. Hell, she wasn't even wearing makeup. He'd thought the lack of makeup in the picture he had already seen was simply because she had been swimming, but a look at the next picture on the shelf led him to believe she never wore the shit.

He felt a twinge of something he could only describe as jealousy when he looked at that next picture. It was clearly a candid shot that had been taken in a park, and the woman was curled up between a tall, muscular man's legs while they sat on the ground against a tree, her right hand holding onto the fur lining of a large coat that was draped over his shoulders. The pair was fast asleep, his arms wrapped protectively around her bare waist, his knees pulled up to shield her smaller body against the outside world, and his nose nestled in her hair. The pair of them couldn't have looked more perfect for each other. The woman with her dainty and wholly feminine features, that soft beauty Erik couldn't help but admire every time he saw her face, light skin and golden hair. Then there was her companion. Equally blonde spiky hair, thickly corded muscles that radiated power with an electrifying intensity even in a photograph, a strong jaw, and an odd scar over his eye.

She looked so damn comfortable in that guy's arms, like it was the best place in the world for her to sleep. He couldn't explain it, but the thought of that angel being held by another man made him sick to his stomach. _'Probably because I just want her for myself,'_ he mused. He took one last look at the picture, and just before he turned to the next one, something on the frame caught his eye.

 _'Sometimes, being a big brother is better than being a superhero.'_

The message was etched into the dark metal of the frame, each letter carefully painted in white to help it stand out even more. Erik lifted his hand slowly and picked up the frame, his fingers brushing over it as he looked at the small details he'd missed before. Clouds rolled along the edges, small lightning bolts arcing off here and there toward the picture behind the glass. There were small stars etched deeper into some of the clouds, painted in a soft, glittery gold. _'Her brother, huh?'_ he thought while returning the frame to the shelf. One thing was for sure, with a guy that intimidating as a sibling, whoever this woman was would definitely be well-protected.

The next photo on the shelf had a wide and hopeful smile stretching across his face. A younger version of himself, maybe only a year or two older than his last memory, stood in the middle of a huge field with his large, noxious tendrils of crimson poison swirling around him. While it was intriguing to see what he'd actually looked like while using his magic, what really stuck out was the giant purple snake whose snout was brushing against his cheek while she coiled herself around him.

 _'A poisonous pair. The best of friends.'_

"Cubellios," Erik whispered fondly. If there was a picture of his oldest and dearest friend in this place, then clearly she must still be around somewhere. Maybe he had been able to figure out how to hear her voice!

A picture of himself with an arm around a purple-haired barmaid was the next on the shelf. He had that same self-assured grin he always used while their heads rested against one another, her own smile both coy and mischievous. Her green eyes looked so familiar, like he had known them all his life. The way he held onto her was one of comfort, safety, assurance that neither would disappear. Erik was extremely aware of little nuances in body language as a result of his Soul Listening magic, but he couldn't understand why he would be holding onto the woman that way when seeing her now didn't bring anything pushing against the fog that blocked out his memory. Not like the blonde woman did.

 _'You can never lose the love of a friend.'_

Not even the inscription on the frame gave him a clue about who the woman was.

The final picture on that shelf also had him in it, but he was arm wrestling with a red-haired woman in a bathing suit, both of their eyes glinting with fierce determination. The whisper of a memory tried to surface for him but nothing came from it. Just that he knew her. What was surprising though was that the closer he looked at his face in the picture, the more he noticed how tense his jaw was. He was actually _struggling_ in that little match. Erik frowned when he looked at the frame, taking in the countless weapons that were etched into it and the small skull-and-crossbones that were embossed in each corner. The bottom portion of the frame had an inscription etched into it, just like all the others.

 _'Whoever said sibling rivalry was a bad thing has never met us.'_

Erik was officially confused. He didn't have a family, let alone someone that he could call a sibling. Cubellios was the first friend he ever had, the only one in his life that he'd considered a member of his family, even if he didn't really know what that was like. Did that mean the red-haired woman with piercing brown eyes was someone he considered to be a sister? Maybe that was why seeing her had given him that small glimmer of a memory.

He looked down to the shelf below it, and his breath stalled in his throat. Why he hadn't looked at this picture first was beyond him, since it was larger than the other four. It was a photo taken at what he could only assume was a wedding reception. The woman's brother was dancing in the background with what Erik assumed was his bride, her long red hair pulled into an elegant braid that was woven around itself into a bun. The couple definitely looked happy and in love, but that was nothing in comparison to the main subjects. Erik saw himself for the first time with the blonde, and he couldn't help the smug grin that spread across his face when he saw her pressed tightly to his chest with her lips only inches from his while they danced. While it could very well have just been that they were close friends, dancing together at a wedding, Erik was able to see that his hand was sitting dangerously low on her back with his fingertips grazing her ass. They were looking deeply into each other's eyes as though they were the only ones in the room, the smile on his face matching hers and surprising the hell out of him with its appearance. He hadn't been aware that he could even smile like that in the first place, but the warmth that spread through him at the sight of it was all he needed to know that this woman was definitely someone special to him.

So just who the hell was she? A friend, girlfriend, or maybe just a fuck-buddy? Were they maybe more than that? With an exhausted sigh, he turned away from the shelves and walked into the kitchen. He couldn't hear a single sound or soul within the confines of the apartment aside from himself, so he simply pretended it was the most normal thing in the world to walk around the place. With his mental fingers crossed, he opened the cupboard beneath the sink to look for some cleaning supplies. Nothing. His eye narrowed, he moved on to what he assumed was the pantry. Only non-perishable food. With a roll of his eye, he finally decided to check the refrigerator.

"Okay, my ass has definitely fucking been here if there's bleach and snake venom in the fridge," he whispered to himself. He pulled the gallon-sized jug from the appliance and didn't even bother with a glass. Honestly, there was no point since he was pretty sure there wasn't anyone else that was planning on coming in and drinking the toxic liquid. Once the chemicals hit his tongue, he moaned softly and took a large gulp. Then another. And another. If he had been out for three days, then that meant he'd gone without any poison in his system whatsoever for far too long. That could very well have been the reason for his memories not returning. Maybe he'd gotten an injury that had yet to heal, which meant he needed to heal faster. When his lungs were screaming for oxygen, Erik finally pulled the jug away from his lips, his eye widening when he found that he had emptied half of it in one go.

Within moments, as the bleach settled itself in his stomach and started being absorbed into his bloodstream, he felt loads better. Still couldn't remember a goddamn thing of the past thirteen years, no sudden revelations or choirs of angels sounding in the distance that accompanied an epiphany, but he felt better. That was worth something, he supposed. Deciding that he needed to take a look around the apartment more, maybe even see if he had some damn clothing in this place so he could get out of the borrowed hospital sweats and shirt he'd been given, Erik put the jug down on the counter and walked out of the kitchen. A quick peek into the few doors lining the hallway revealed a bathroom, linen closet, a spare bedroom that was painted in a soothing sky blue, and then a master bedroom.

And this was where it got weird for him again. He felt like someone was going to pop out at any second and throw some handcuffs on him for breaking and entering. He felt around for a switch, and his eye nearly bugged out of his skull when he saw the room. While the rest of the house looked completely normal, almost as though it had been cut from a magazine about interior decorating, the master bedroom was more along the lines of a 'seduction suite'. The walls were a deep crimson, the ceiling, moulding, and carpet were black. There was a large four-poster bed on the far wall with a black and red bedspread, and… Cobra slowly looked up at the ceiling and his jaw dropped. "A fucking mirror?" he asked the empty room, "Seriously? There's a mirror on the ceiling? Who the—" Erik paused and blinked, then took a deep pull of the air and slowly walked over to the bed.

Even though he felt like the biggest fucking creeper in all of Earthland, he leaned down and smelled the pillows. Roasted garlic and almonds were heavy on one pillow—his own scent. He leaned over and smelled the other pillow, his eye sliding closed when that morning dew and daisies aroma that barely permeated the air filled his lungs. "Fuck me, if that's her then I'm the luckiest guy ever…" he whispered, a small smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth when he looked back up at the mirror on the ceiling. _'I wonder if that was my idea… Seems like something I'd do…'_ The thought of having the blonde woman in a bed that he had very obviously slept in more than once had his imagination running wild. With all of the things he was able to hear rattling around in everyone he encountered, it was hard not to develop at least some small semblance of an imagination. Especially when he got to listen in on artists—specifically authors. Their minds were always so vivid, with more detail packed into every single memory than anyone could hope to achieve. They attached emotions to everything, and he absolutely _loved_ hearing how they worked through word problems. It was like his very own theme park.

With one last deep breath, Erik pulled himself from that soothing aroma and made his way over to the dresser. There were six drawers; two columns of three. He just had to take a guess and see what he came up with. The top left drawer provided him with a view of a surprisingly large amount of lingerie, little slips of lace that he was sure provided no actual coverage, matching bras for a _very_ large chest. Instead of slaking his curiosity to figure out just how large the blonde's chest really was—because there was still a possibility that these weren't her belongings, or even that he was actually an intruder at the moment with no real right to be in this apartment—he closed it and moved on to the next drawer.

All. Fucking. Bikinis.

In a wide array of colors. Some with strings to tie them closed, some that he couldn't even _begin_ to figure out just how they were to keep anything hidden.

He carefully closed that drawer as well, then sighed and looked at the other half of the dresser. He slowly opened the top drawer on the other side, assuming that he didn't even _want_ to know what was in that bottom drawer on the left, and tensed as though a rabid animal was hiding just inside, waiting to rip his dick off and eat it. "Now we're gettin' somewhere," he said triumphantly when he found several pairs of boxers and socks. He grabbed one of each, shut the drawer and went to the second. Tank tops. A frown pulled at his lips while his brow quirked in confusion. Erik never wore tank tops. Not with the scars on his wrists and back from being in the Tower. Hell, even the clothing he'd been wearing when he was brought to the hospital had consisted of a long-sleeved shirt, a coat, a pair of pants, and boots. It was the same shit he always wore. Granted, the style had been a little different—something he reasoned was because it was thirteen years later than he could remember—but he was still covered.

Erik shook his head and closed the drawer, then bent down to open the bottom one. All pajama pants. "Okay, maybe I started sleeping with a shirt on?" he whispered, closing the final drawer with a sigh. While he was at least getting an idea of the kind of life he may have been living, possibly with the blonde woman whose picture he'd been admiring, Erik was only finding more questions instead of answers. And it was starting to give him a fucking headache. What he needed was a shower and a nap. Then he could look at this shit with fresh eyes—well, _eye_ would be a more accurate description—later on, and hope something clicked for him.

Plan of action in place, Erik opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a pair of pajama pants, setting the socks down on top of the dresser for later, then went into the bathroom to take those stupid, annoying bandages off and take out his stitches.

* * *

 _Somewhere down this road  
I know someone's waiting  
Years of dreams just can't be wrong_  
 _Arms will open wide_

* * *

 _"Take my hand… fly!"_

 _"Crazy wench… gonna kill yourself!"_

 _Lilting laughter filled the air. "… Fly, Erik…"_

 _"Maxi pads…"_

 _"That's disgusting… Research…"_

 _"About… flying…"_

 _"What I am, right?..."_

 _A bright smile. Warm brown eyes shining with glee. Whispers of birds on the wind. A blonde angel glowing in the sun. An echoing hum, the perfect harmony... So calm and soothing. Morning Dew and daisies._

 _"I love you… Always be my little fa…"_

 _"—love you… with me… help you fly!"_

Cobra's eye slowly opened as he rolled onto his back, pulling the pillow he'd commandeered as his official snuggling buddy with him while he took a deep breath. "Mmm," he hummed sleepily, "I really hope that's what you sound like… So damn relaxing." His dream had only been small, faded clips of images or sounds, but he couldn't stop himself from believing it had been about her. Maybe it was a memory. That'd be a great start. With another deep breath, he looked over to the nightstand and realized he'd slept for at least ten hours. _'Time to find some answers… Or clues… Hell, even a fucking receipt for some other town would work for me.'_

Although he would have much rather stayed in the bed, wrapped up in sheets that held the foreign scent (no matter how diminished it was with time), but he would never be able to find the blonde woman, Cubellios, _or_ just where the hell he belonged if he stayed there. Also, he needed to piss something fierce.

After dragging himself from the bed, using the restroom, and looking in the closet to find an alarming amount of half- or quarter-shirts that looked like they belonged on a little girl's doll—along with just as many pairs of shorts or skirts—Erik sighed in relief when he saw clothes that were much more his style. Long-sleeved black shirt, a pair of red pants with straps hanging down around the legs, and even a coat similar to the one he wore in X782, just with a small bit of fur lining the edges. There was even a pair of boots that he could trade his bloody ones for.

As he went back into the living room, Erik started looking through the bookshelves more thoroughly. There were countless books in nearly every genre. _'I like reading, but not this much,'_ he thought, his thumb brushing over the spines. He paused when he found one book that didn't have a title on it, pulling it from the shelf and frowning when there wasn't a single word on the outside of it, just some weird tribal looking design that reminded him of a bird on the cover. He opened the book and froze. The very first page had a picture of himself and the woman. Kissing.

"Well, fuck me with a rusty spork," he whispered incredulously. While he'd been hoping that he and the blonde were something more than just friends who could dance together at her brother's wedding, and knew deep down that she was very special to him, Erik hadn't seen a single shred of proof to show him that it wasn't just wishful thinking. For all he had known, he'd been some creepy ass stalker for the last thirteen years, and this was a shrine to her—thank you again, overactive imagination. But now… Now he had proof. At least one kiss that was shared between them and captured in a photograph. And not just a little peck on the lips. No, apparently she had been _very_ forthcoming with her intentions if the way her hands were tangled in his hair was any indication. There was just the smallest pink mark that he could make out on her hand, but it was mostly obscured by his hair. _'Maybe she's got a tattoo on her hand?'_

He slowly walked over to the couch and sat down, then turned the page. His eye widened just a little further with every picture he saw. Each one had a caption beneath it, just a simple and fucking _vague_ explanation of what was happening, and… He grinned when he saw the elegant feminine handwriting curling so delicately with each perfectly penned number. Years. There was a year listed just under the captions for everything, although the ink was a different color and looked as though it had been added as an afterthought.

The woman was sitting on an infirmary bed, her ankle being wrapped in a bandage with a splint by a slightly older woman in a pink dress with long white hair and blue eyes. A chuckle slipped past Erik's lips when he saw one slender middle finger raised at the camera while she stuck out her tongue. _'Our First Mission. X784.'_ That was a starting point, as far as he was concerned. If he knew her in X784, then that would mean there were just two years that he was missing before the book started.

The blonde was sitting next to him at a table. Her head was lying on his shoulder and there was a sweet smile on her face that was so at odds with the feral grin on his. There didn't seem to be anything special about it, and they weren't cuddled up to each other, so he could only assume that he hadn't known her very long by that point. _'Astral Toxin Inception. X784.'_ He wasn't entirely sure what to make of the caption, so he simply moved on.

Erik frowned when he looked at the next picture. It was another one in an infirmary. He was lying on a bed with the woman held carefully in his arms as they slept. He had a few scrapes and bruises, but her… She was only in a sports bra, so he was able to see the bandages wrapped around her ribs, and there were more along her arms and even her head. The small portion of her face that was visible gave him the perfect view of a split lip and a black eye with tears streaming down her face and soaking into his shirt. _'Post-Phantom War. X784.'_

 _*.*_

 _"You're my hero, y'know that?"_

 _"Nah, someone's gotta look out for your ass. Always getting into trouble…"_

 _She giggled softly, hissing in pain as her ribs protested the movement. "Still… Thanks for saving me."_

 _"Always will, T—"_

 _*.*_

Erik put a hand to his forehead and closed his eye, feeling the rest of the memory fading into nothingness as the pressure that had built up slowly faded. Apparently, looking at these pictures was _definitely_ a step in the right direction, even if he had to deal with some discomfort from memories surfacing. He could handle that if it gave him the answers he was looking for. He looked back down at the picture, and shook his head slowly. If that wisp of a memory was associated with this picture, with the events surrounding it, then he had to believe that he'd done right by her in some way. _'I saved her,'_ he thought, furrowing his brow when he tried to push further against the fog that blocked everything off from him only for his headache to return. With a growl of agitation, deciding to keep his head from splitting open, Erik moved on.

He was in the middle of a huge field again, except this time he was flying through the air with Cubellios several feet beneath him. Crimson poison was flowing from his hand and right into a training dummy, and the picture was captured just as the thing exploded. _'Poisoning Inanimate Objects. X784.'_ Cobra laughed and rolled his eye.

The next photo showed the blonde woman in that same field, and his eyebrow quirked when he saw that she was wielding a whip in one hand while the ginger-haired man in a suit from the picture on the shelf faced off against her. Her arm was held out in front of her, the whip pulled taut as it wrapped around the man's ankle, and there was a huge grin on her face. _'Whipping Lions into Submission. X784'_ He didn't have great memories where that particular weapon was concerned, but he had to trust the judgment call he'd clearly made back then if he trusted her not to use it on him. She didn't really seem like the type to have that sort of darkness within her, but Erik figured he could decide that for himself once he found her again.

The next several pages were filled with random pictures of the two of them—and sometimes even Cubellios—walking in the woods, on a train, or sitting at a quaint little apartment with pink walls. Hell, there were even pictures of him getting into fights with people—like a guy with pink hair that had fire covering him from head to toe, or the back of a naked man that had a sword made out of ice in his hand—although _why_ the guy was naked was fucking beyond him at that point. From what he could tell, this woman had become a very close friend of his during that time. As the pictures progressed, the two of them seemed to gravitate toward one another, their body language practically screaming attraction while the images themselves were just ordinary.

Cubellios was coiled around the woman, her slender hand reaching up and tenderly petting the large snake's snout, her nose crinkled and what Erik assumed was a laugh bursting from her as Cubellios' tongue flicked out across her neck. The sight of it warmed his heart. His first friend had clearly approved of this mystery woman, since that was the same thing she'd always done with him once she was large enough to wrap herself around him. _'My Favorite Girls. X784.'_ The caption made him pause. This one in particular was written by himself instead of the woman, and he couldn't help but smile even wider as he thought, _'Hell yeah. I can definitely see why.'_

It surprised the hell out of him to see a picture of the pair of them on the deck of a ship. That part wasn't much of a shock—since he and this woman apparently went all over the damn place if the other pictures were anything to go by. It was the fact that, while she was wearing a bikini that had his mouth watering, the version of himself in that picture wasn't wearing a shirt. With other people clearly around and able to see him. The scars on his wrists were completely visible as his arms wrapped around the blonde, his palms pressed to the backs of her hands and their fingers laced together. Even a couple of the lash marks on his back that had travelled up and over his shoulders could be seen. Instead of trying to hide himself, the Erik in that picture looked like he didn't have a care in the world while his nose was nestled in the crook of her neck and they looked over the railing on the ship out into the sea.

 _*.*_

 _"You're not putting that shit on me, psycho! Just lemme drink it!"_

 _"Don't be a baby!"_

 _"I'm not!"_

 _The woman paused, frowning and placing a hand on her hip while holding a dark brown container in the other hand. "You said your scars are sensitive if you get too much sun. So get the fuck over here and let me help you."_

 _"Ugh… Fine…" Slender hands smoothed a cool substance over his back, then his wrists, and his head dropped when those dainty yet strong fingers started kneading the muscles that were tense._

 _"See? All better. Now you won't be shedding like Cubellios! Good thing too, otherwise I might just start calling you Cobra."_

 _"You're fucking hilarious…" His tone was drenched in sarcasm._

 _A peal of laughter split the air. "Aww, poor widdle Cobwa's all gwumpy." She pinched his cheek, laughing when he snapped his teeth at her. "Fine fine, I'll stop…"_

 _His eyes narrowed, a growl slipping from him. "I really am gonna fucking bite you if you keep that 'snakefucker' shit up."_

 _She leaned in close, a devious twinkle in her eye and a seductive smile on her lips. Their noses brushed together. "When we get back, I'm sure you'll be doing a whole lot more than biting me..."_

 _*.*_

Erik blinked as he looked down at the picture again. She was able to touch his scars? She was _fine_ with it? This woman teased him, and he hadn't tried to stop her aside from a half-hearted threat. Based on that little sliver of a memory, she actually cared enough to help him even when he was being an asshole— _'And holy fuck is it hot when she talks like that,'_ he thought—and that look in her eyes right at the end had been a promise of hours of fun for the both of them. He looked down at the caption and frowned when nothing seemed to click into place for him. _'On Our Way to Tenrou. X784.'_

He looked at the picture of them on the boat for another minute, brushing his fingers over where his hands were clasped with hers. "Why can't I remember you?" he whispered sadly. "I want to... I know you're important, especially if you got close enough to even see my scars in the first place. So, why can't I even remember your goddamn _name_? Why did _you_ have to disappear instead of that hellhole I grew up in?"

Erik turned the page and chuckled when he saw himself giving her a piggyback ride off of a different ship, both of them covered in bandages along with the few other people he could see in the picture. He had no idea what happened to fuck them all up so badly, but they all looked so damn happy. _'Back from the Grave. X791.'_ While the first part of the caption had been funny, considering they all looked as though they really got their asses handed to them, the year threw him for a loop. Seven years since the last picture. His brow furrowed and he thumbed the page to see if maybe there were a few that had gotten stuck together.

Nope. It somehow went from X784 to X791. None of them looked a day older than the last picture though. Then again, maybe he was just imagining things. They were pretty banged up, so that was probably why he couldn't tell that they were older. He wondered if maybe something had happened to make her disappear from his life for that time period. They were obviously a couple before going to Tenrou, so maybe they broke up? If that was the case, then he could only assume they had gotten back together with how many pictures were still left for him to go through.

The next one only confused him further. The blonde was in a cemetery, kneeling in front of a grave with white lilies in her lap. Her back was to the camera, the sky was a dreary grey, and he could feel his soul aching to comfort her. _'Saying Goodbye to Dad. X791.'_

He brought the book closer when he looked at the headstone. There hadn't been any pictures of her family in the book, not even her brother. Had he not met her family? It was clear her father had died, and that she was mourning, so why had the picture even been taken in the first place? He sighed in frustration when he couldn't make out more than _'Ju—'_ and _'Hear—'_ with the angle of the picture, the woman's slender shoulders blocking the rest from view.

 _*.*_

 _"I'm sorry..."_

 _She sniffled and hugged him tighter. "It's not your fault. Parents are supposed to go before their kids... I-I just... I wish I could h-have said..."_

 _He kissed her hair when she broke down into tears. "I know... We can go see him though, alright?"_

 _She nodded quickly. "I w-wanna find Cubellios first... Sh-she should be there... Th-That way... Both of you c-can finally m-meet him..."_

 _"Whatever you wanna do. I know she's out there somewhere. I can feel it."_

 _"I miss her."_

 _"Me too..." He paused and chuckled, lifting her chin up and brushing away her tears. "She does **not** give better hugs than me. That's a dick move."_

 _A smile through her tears. A watery laugh. "Sure she does. Cuby wraps around me just right. Best cuddles ever."_

 _"So sorry I'm not a snake." Her smile brightened as he pushed her down onto the bed. "But how about I just get you wrapped around me instead?"_

 _*.*_

Erik blinked repeatedly to clear away the headache that came back ten times worse. That memory had a lot more detail, but now he felt like taking a hammer to his skull. After several deep breaths, it diminished until it was just a dull ache between his eyebrows. He looked back down at the picture and felt tears welling in his eye along with a sharp, searing pain that pierced through the empty socket on the right. "Fuck!" he hissed, dropping his head to his hands and pressing against his eyelids to force the tears to leave. He vaguely remembered the doctor mentioning that his tear ducts on the right side might still get nerve impulses when he cried, even though they didn't actually function over there now. Apparently, his craptastic brain decided pain was how that shit needed to get translated. He hadn't thought much about it at the time, since he never cried as far as he could remember, but... It seemed even that was different now, too.

While his eyes were closed, Erik thought over what that memory had told him without trying to figure anything else out, or pushing for more of it to come back. He was with the woman while she was grieving, he was apparently compassionate and gentle with her, and it seemed like she cared about Cubellios just as much as he did. What made his heart sink, however, was the fact that she had mentioned finding Cubellios. _'Does that mean she disappeared? Fuck, did I ever find her?'_

He shook his head to clear the questions away. He would get his answers eventually... For now, he just wanted to see the rest of the pictures and hopefully find a clue as to where the woman was. She didn't come to see him in the hospital, but he had to find her. If anyone could help him put the pieces of those missing years together, it seemed like she would be the one.

Erik turned the page and raised an eyebrow at the side-by-side pictures. One was of himself, passed the hell out and cuddling on his side with a pillow, and a dark blue comforter pushed down to just below his hips. He wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing, and the only thing that was covering him was that comforter, but he had a feeling it didn't stay that way once the picture was taken. _'Code Name: Cuddly Cobra. X791.'_

The second picture was very similar, except it was her. Naked as hell with only that same dark blue comforter covering her hips. She wasn't cuddling with a pillow like he had been, and was instead smiling sleepily at him with one arm being used to cover her nipples and an adorably red nose. In her free hand was a crumpled tissue that helped to explain the state her nose was in. _'Secret Agent Sniffly Sex Kitten. X791.'_ Again, the caption was written in his own hand. Just the sight of her like that had the breath rushing from his lungs, and his pants suddenly becoming much tighter. The knowledge that she was very clearly naked was much more arousing than seeing her in a bathing suit, even if her nose was red and raw from sneezing and she looked a little pale—something he could only assume was a cold. If he hadn't thrown the camera to the side and ravished every inch of her right after that picture was taken, then he didn't deserve to remember a woman as beautiful as she was. Then again, if she had gotten sick, then Erik guessed he could forgive himself if he hadn't pinned her to the bed. The fresh hickey on her collarbone was enough to let him know that he'd already accomplished that.

"Shit, how often does this chick get hurt?" he muttered when he turned the page again. This infirmary was different from the others, but she was still wrapped in bandages. Her whip and a leather pouch of some sort were on the table next to the bed. Just like the other pictures of her lying in an infirmary, Erik was right there with her. Except this time he looked ready to kill anything and everything that tried to come anywhere near him or the blonde. _'Post-Naval Battle, GMG. X791.'_ Yet again, he was officially lost.

He skimmed the rest of the pictures, taking in all of the different places he and this woman had apparently gone to. Theme parks, the beach, picnics in a park, a resort in the mountains, a casino. Photograph after photograph, years of memories that he didn't have. Occasionally, they would be walking in the woods, on a dirt path through some hills, or even sitting in a booth in a train. Most times, it was just the two of them, but every once in a while her brother would be there as well, looking just as bored and angry as Erik usually did when he wasn't alone with her. Or the red-haired woman that was apparently Erik's sister would be there, a soft smile or terrifyingly stern expression on her face. But there wasn't a single thing he could go off of to find the blonde. There weren't any common occurrences except for the apartment with pink walls, the bed with the blue comforter, and an infirmary that either had one or both of them being bandaged up.

One thing he could tell about this mystery woman though, was that she was full of life and happiness. Even in the pictures where she was scowling at the camera, something that surprisingly sent shivers down his spine, she was still so vibrant. So radiant. He wanted so badly to know who this woman was, to find her and hold her close, to ask all of the questions that he couldn't answer for himself. Erik had never depended on anyone in his life, but the thought of depending on _her_ didn't make his stomach churn. It made his soul almost sigh contentedly.

The next picture he came across made him pause and tilt his head to the side. She was standing on top of a table in a pair of short-shorts, a lacy crimson bra, and one boot with the biggest shit-eating grin on her face while she pumped a fist into the air. He was there as well, in the process of glaring daggers at the blonde while unbuttoning his shirt. Whoever had been taking the picture was clearly a master at it, since they'd been able to also capture what the cause for the woman's apparently gloating was about. There on the table was a Scrabble board with a few words already in play, with a row of shot glasses on either side of the board between the letter trays and the game board itself. There were four empty glasses on her side, and six on his side. His eyebrow raised in surprise when he saw what had been put down, and he couldn't help but wonder how he'd found someone that was clearly as intelligent as the blonde was.

"Perspicacity, esoteric, quantum, jargon, colloquial," Erik muttered as he read the words on the Scrabble board that he could make out. "Orgasm, spandex… Viridian? Huh, that's different." One look at the caption had him chuckling and shaking his head. _'Rainy Day Boredom Leads to Strip-Shot Scrabble. X791.'_ Just beneath the caption was a bar napkin with quickly scrawled rules for the game that he and the blond had apparently been playing.

 _Rule #1: Combine letters from two Scrabble boards. (They never have enough otherwise)  
Rule #2: Draw 1.5 times the amount of letters as usual. Second tray can be used to hold the excess.  
Rule #3: Upon setting a word, player must define it accurately.  
Rule #4: If a set word is either improperly defined, opposing player can define to steal points. First player strips one piece of clothing and take a shot.  
Rule #5: If the word is not in the dictionary, player must strip one piece of clothing and take two shots._

Erik chuckled again and brushed his thumb over the napkin. It seemed the woman was definitely intelligent, but she also could enjoy herself. He'd never considered a word game to be a source of _that_ much entertainment, or that it could be turned into a drinking game in the first place, but he definitely liked the idea. He was curious though. Was he the one that had come up with it? Or was it her?

He quickly noticed as he kept looking through the pictures that there weren't any gaps after that seven years. From X791 until Christmas Eve X794, there were tons of pictures documenting his time with her. He hated that he couldn't look at them and just pull the events surrounding the image from his memory. It made his heart ache that he wasn't able to remember someone like her. Someone that he could tell he loved. Maybe that was part of the reason he was so desperate to find her. His heart and soul remembered her well enough. It was just his mind that couldn't recall anything.

The final page of the book had a picture of them as well, except this time they were both lying beneath that blue comforter. Their skin was slick with sweat, their hair matted, and they were cuddled so closely that there wasn't a single pocket of air between them as she laid almost completely on top of his chest. Erik's gaze was immediately drawn to her shoulder, to what was a very clear bite wound where his teeth had punctured her delicate skin. His eye widened, already knowing what that particular 'love bite' actually meant when he noticed the small purple veins branching off of the mark. And that was when he saw it. The fingers on her left hand were gently touching the tip of his ear, and there was only the slightest glint of light that reflected off of a golden ring adorned with a small ruby. "You're fucking shitting me," he said breathlessly.

 _*.*_

 _"Of course I will!"_

 _"You sure? You can't back out once it's done..."_

 _"I've been sure for years, but you already knew that." She giggled, her thumbs brushing over the tips of his ears. "I still expect a ring, y'know."_

 _"Good thing I came prepared then... Marry me?"_

 _She blushed and nodded happily. A delighted squeal echoed as he rolled her over on the bed, slipping the ring on her finger as his lips descended on hers._

 _*.*_

A wide grin spread across his face, his heart soaring right along with his soul. "No fucking way... She's really... Holy shit..." Erik whispered happily. He looked at the small paper that was folded and taped beneath the picture, then opened it slowly.

 _All out of pages in this one. Looks like I'll have to start a new book for us. I can't believe so little time has gone by since I started this, and I'm glad you decided to add a few quirky captions of your own. Hopefully your mission is finished soon, because I miss you already. Go ahead and leave this one at the apartment in Shirotsume. I've got another one here at home. Be safe and hurry back to the guild, alright? I love you to the stars and back, Sugar._

 _P.S. The sooner you come home, the sooner you get to enjoy my new lingerie. I'll give you a little more motivation: If I could still get poisoned, then you eating this off of me would involve a **very** short time limit. See you soon, sexy._

Erik went to close the book and frowned as a picture fell out and fluttered down to his lap. He picked it up, setting the book on the coffee table, and his jaw dropped. The blonde was propped up on her knees on the blue comforter, wearing a pair of panties that was made from little hard candies with a string running through them. The matching top was similar to a bikini top from what he could tell, except she wasn't wearing it. She was holding it in her hand and nibbling on one of the candy pieces while she grinned at the camera. Her other hand was tangled in her hair, the light pink tattoo on the back of it mostly covered by her golden tresses, giving him a completely uninhibited view of her bare breasts. "I… Am _so_ … fucking lucky," Erik whispered absently. He may not have had any memories of the last thirteen years, but right then he couldn't help but fill those blank spaces with the image in front of him. "God, she's sexy as hell…"

While the brain in his pants was screaming at him to take that picture into the bathroom, and he was very ready to do just that, he couldn't. He apparently had more than just a nameless blonde that he was searching for. Erik had a fiancée—a _mate_ —that was waiting for him back at home. Where exactly home _was_ , he still hadn't the foggiest. But he was more determined than ever to get his ass back to her. He didn't think the whole draconic mating process worked for second generation Slayers, but based on the bite on her shoulder in the book and the fact that the wound had healed and left deep purple veins traveling from her shoulder and onto her chest in the picture in his hand? Yeah, clearly he'd been wrong. And he could only assume that he had figured it out sometime during that gap in his memory.

No way in hell was he going to keep her waiting any longer than he needed to. Erik had no fucking clue how he would find her, but it was happening no matter how much time it took. He picked the book up from the coffee table, then walked quickly back to the master bedroom. He'd seen a spare knapsack on the floor of the closet, so he pulled that out and threw whatever he thought he might need in it, then carefully set the scrapbook on top and closed the bag. She had said to leave it at the apartment he was in, but that wasn't going to happen until he found her. He had no way of knowing how much time would pass before he could see her in person, so those pictures of a past he couldn't remember would hopefully give him some clues along the way.

With a much lighter feeling in his heart, Erik looked back at the darkened apartment one last time before he stepped out and closed the door. _'I'm coming home. Wherever you are, I swear I'll find you again."_

* * *

The deadbolt turned and the door opened not a moment later with the lights flickering on shortly afterwards. She took long strides into the apartment, searching for anything out of the ordinary, any sign that Erik had been here recently. "Erik?" Lucy called, "Sugar, are you here?"

Silence.

She refused to let her fear of the worst possible scenario imaginable stop her from venturing further into the apartment. With her mind set on finding any clues that her mate was still around, Lucy made her way towards the kitchen while the door closed behind her a minute later. She smiled when she saw the half-full gallon of bleach sitting on the counter. After years of trying to get him to remember to put it back in the refrigerator so it would be cold when he wanted more, Erik still left it out. She didn't mind that he drank directly from the bottle, considering he was the only one that was drinking out of it in the first place—and she would rather not taste bleach or potentially poison their guests if any dishes were to get accidentally contaminated. It was more a matter of not having a random gallon of bleach on the counter all the time. Still, that one bottle, set the exact same distance it always was from the refrigerator, had her heart racing excitedly. "He was here!" she shouted happily.

The temperature of the bottle, and its contents, had her deflating just a little. It was room temperature, not a single bit of a chill to it. She wasn't entirely sure how long it took for the bleach to warm up enough for that, but the fact that it was there was enough for her. She put the bottle back in the refrigerator and raced out of the kitchen, still smiling while she looked over at the hulking and coat-covered back of her 'older brother'. "Laxus, can you smell him? Was he here recently?"

"Sorry, sis. It's been a couple days at the least," Laxus sighed, turning around and wincing when he saw Lucy's shoulders sag a little. "It could be more since you've got his scent on you now… Plus it quite literally smells fucking toxic, so I hate breathing it in to begin with… It's always strong as hell."

Lucy let out a dejected sigh and nodded slowly. "I'll… I'll just go check the bedroom, and see if maybe he left a note or something…"

"Lucy," Laxus called after her, sighing when she simply ignored him. "Goddamnit…" He hadn't meant to make her upset, but the way she had slowly trudged down the hallway made him feel like a total asshole. Here his little sister was, running all over the goddamn country for two weeks in search of the only guy she had ever liked—the guy who she fucking _mated_ with and that she was supposed to marry—and there hadn't been any trace of him whatsoever. None of the Slayers were able to pick up his scent while they were out and about on their own missions. Nearly the entire guild was keeping an eye out for him; if not for the fact that he was a member of Fairy Tail, then because Lucy wouldn't stop crying when she thought about him. She would think she had a lead, go off and look, then come back in tears when it didn't pan out.

Erik was only supposed to be gone a couple days, tops. It was a simple bag-and-tag job for some beasts that were terrorizing a neighboring town's farmland. It was something everyone knew he could handle, especially since he'd just been promoted to S-Class that past year. Lucy had stayed behind because she wanted to get some quality time with the girls while they worked on wedding arrangements—something that Laxus had thoroughly explained to Erik that he needed to avoid like the plague (well, like a _normal person_ would avoid the plague) if Lucy would allow it.

Lucy even gave him a few extra days before she started to worry, because she thought that maybe he'd gotten held up with something. The problem came when the requestor contact Makarov and said that the mage who took the request never came back for his reward, so he was sending it to the guild even though the job was only half finished. Laxus had gone out with Bickslow and Gajeel to handle the job and see if they couldn't catch a hint of that disgusting, lip-curling, poison-tinged scent of his… And of course beat his ass for making his mate cry at all. Laxus may have also considered shocking him into sterility, not for making the woman he took as his mate cry, but because she was also Laxus' baby sister. No, Erik needed to have a damn good reason for being gone this long without at least calling her; otherwise, they would all be wearing gas masks to the funeral pyre lit by Laxus' very own lightning.

The only reason they had come to this apartment in the first place was because it was the closest major town to where Erik's mission had been. Lucy hadn't thought to check here, even though she had apparently given him a scrapbook to drop off when he got off the train before getting started on the job—since he would have been passing by anyway. It wasn't until Laxus' wife mentioned the two couples going on vacation when the weather warmed up enough that Lucy had realized they had never looked for him at the couple's little home away from home. Laxus still had no idea why they'd gotten a place all the way out in Shirotsume when it was so far from the guild, but any time he asked… Lucy and Erik would both just blankly stare at him (something he blamed the younger Slayer for teaching her when she was trying to keep a secret).

Lucy roughly wiped her eyes before Laxus could smell her tears, and made her way into the bedroom. The bed wasn't made, and there was one pillow pulled far away from the headboard. _'He was cuddling with my pillow? How long was he here?'_ The closet was hanging open, a good portion of his clothing had been ripped off of the hangers, and the emergency bag they kept on the floor was gone. Fear clutched at her heart while she stared at the open door. What could have possibly happened that he would be in such a rush to get out of there? Erik was oddly obsessive when it came to keeping things tidy—with the exception of that gallon jug he could never seem to put away—so there had to have been some reason for him to throw hangers all over the place, even leaving a few shirts and pairs of pants strewn across the closet floor.

What Lucy saw next nearly had her knees buckling. The boots he'd been wearing when he left on his mission were harmlessly sitting next to the closet, but they were covered in what she already knew was dried blood. Not just covered in it, but it was clear that the blood had been thoroughly soaked in the crimson liquid. She numbly walked into the bathroom, and her eyes were drawn to a single towel hanging on the rack. A pair of unfamiliar sweat pants and a white shirt draped over the edge of the hamper. Hesitant, fear-filled steps drew her closer and closer to those foreign clothes, and Lucy had to stifle a sob when she saw the insignia for Shirotsume's local hospital printed on the tag. "H-Hospital…?" she whispered, her throat constricting while she looked up to the closed shower curtain.

Biting her lips, Lucy drew it back quickly, and found nothing wrong. Even still, she couldn't stop her tears from flowing. She turned around and wrapped her arms around herself, not hearing Laxus calling out her name as he drew closer to the master bedroom. She was just about to start making her way out of the bathroom to tell Laxus they should just head back when something in the trash can by the toilet caught her eye.

White, red, black. Three seemingly innocent colors, colors that she had grown very accustomed to since joining Fairy Tail.

Bandages. Blood. Thread. Erik was hurt, and pretty severely from the amount of medical supplies sitting in the trash. Her mate was hurt, and she hadn't known about it. And now he was missing. She knew that the smart thing to do would be going down to the hospital to ask about his condition when he'd left, why he was wearing those clothes, pretty much fucking _anything_ to figure out what was wrong. The only problem with that idea is that Erik still didn't trust people. He wouldn't have given them his real name, or told them anything about himself if he didn't have to.

"L-Laxus," she whispered weakly as the room started spinning. She hardly heard his footsteps rushing closer to where she was, or the worry in his voice while he called out to her, feeling her blood rushing far too quickly through her pounding heart. This was too much for her to process, and she knew it. The world turned on its axis, and Lucy felt two familiar and thickly muscled arms wrapping around her just before everything went black.

* * *

 _I'll be safe and wanted_  
 _Finally home where I belong  
Well starting now I'm learning fast_  
 _On this journey to the past_

* * *

Erik sighed as he made his way back to the train station of yet _another_ town. He searched the place high and low, looked through store windows, went into magic shops, everything he could think of. It had been three weeks since he left that apartment, and he had been tempted to simply go back and wait there to see if she would show up looking for him more times than he could count since that first day. Every time he found himself ready to turn tail and run back to Shirotsume, the conversation he'd been roped into by one of the other tenants in the building would filter right back in.

 _*.*_

 _"Erik! I almost didn't recognize you! How have you been?"_

 _"Fine."_

 _"How's Lucy doing? You guys haven't been to town in a few months."_

 _"… Lucy?" he asked in confusion._

 _The woman laughed and rolled her eyes, bouncing a baby on her hip. "Yes, Lucy. You know, your better half?" she teased. "She's in that one guild down south, you know the one."_

 _"Lucy…" he said slowly, a soft smile on his face. "She's… She's good. She stayed back home while I went on a mission." A name. He finally had a fucking name for her! And a direction to go. Finally some fucking answers._

 _"Oh, well be sure to tell her hi for us. I've gotta get going. See you around!"_

 _*.*_

Three weeks, and all he had was a name and a direction from Shirotsume. At the time, he'd been absolutely ecstatic. He still was when he went to sleep at night and looked at the scrapbook he'd brought with him. He would look at every single picture, silently repeating her name and hoping with everything he was worth that another memory would pop up. It never worked. Three weeks and he didn't know anything more than he did the day he left that apartment.

He couldn't give up on searching for her, and he definitely couldn't just turn around and hope she would come find him. What if she never did? What if she was waiting around for him to come back to her, not wanting to leave in case he finally returned and she wasn't there? Erik had no idea how long it had been since he and Lucy had taken that final picture in the scrapbook, since the night he had marked her. From what he could tell, it was organized chronologically, so they had mated sometime after Christmas Eve the previous year. He already knew that it was nearing May, so that gave him a short window to work with, even shorter if he took off the three goddamn weeks he'd wasted so far.

He just needed a miracle to land in his lap. Even another memory would suffice. Just a small snippet of _something_ about her to help him keep going. That way, he could feel like he was making progress instead of wandering around with his thumb up his ass, searching for a beautiful blonde needle in a haystack.

Erik sighed as the train pulled into the station, already feeling a headache coming on from the sheer amount of people he was surrounded by. This was why he was always alone before. He couldn't hear Cubellios, and he'd been able to use that to his advantage by focusing his magic on trying to pull the sound of her soul out. Now, he had much more control over it, but the dull buzz that a person's soul faded into when he intentionally tuned them out was more like a beehive had been shoved in his skull from how many people were around. He slowly stood from the bench he'd been occupying for the past twenty minutes, and grabbed his bag before he boarded the train.

The whisper of a soul was calling out to him once he reached the door to the compartment he was planning on taking residence in for the next few hours, but he ignored it. He already knew for a fact that it was just a foggy memory of Lucy's soul that he could never place, and it only made his chest tighten when he considered the fact that he still had no way of finding her easily. His heart and soul quite literally ached, and he brought his hand to his chest to try and rub out the worst of the pain—as if that would actually help him. He wanted to hear what Lucy's soul really sounded like, not the little phantom memory that disappeared as the train started to move. He would feel so happy and free for a short period of time, and then the memory would fade without ever fully taking shape, leaving him feeling more and more heartbroken. He had to persevere though. If not for the sake of remembering what he'd lost, then for the sake of the woman he loved. Lucy deserved to have her mate and fiancé with her, and he swore that he would do right by her by not giving up. He owed her that much, if not more for giving him the ability to love someone after how his life had started.

* * *

Three weeks, and she still hadn't found him. Lucy grabbed her bag as the train pulled into the station of yet another town. She had gotten a lead the day before about someone seeing a man that looked a lot like Erik boarding a train that had been headed this way. Maroon hair, pointed ears, looking like he was ready to punch everyone in the face. It seemed everywhere she went, there was at least one person who said they saw someone that kind of matched his description, but no one ever said that it was him. The person people described would have one or two of the same characteristics, but they also told her that the man they saw didn't look much like the picture she showed them. No one could seem to pinpoint just what it was that made the person they saw different from her fiancé.

In all honesty, Lucy was beginning to lose hope of ever finding him. She refused to give up her search, because she knew that if the tables were turned, Erik would never stop looking for her. She couldn't understand why—if this person that people randomly saw was actually him—he would be wandering all over the place. The cities or towns she travelled to in search of him seemed so random. There wasn't any sort of order to them aside from getting further and further south.

"Luce, I smell him," Natsu said once they stepped off the train. Wendy had insisted that he take the motion sickness pills she and Porlyusica had made, and he was suddenly extremely thankful for them. The ride from his mission with Happy and Lisanna to the town Lucy had been in that morning was a total breeze because of them, and they had instantly boarded another train to come here. Aside from not wanting to vomit all over everything in sight, Natsu knew that his lack of immobility right then was going to be important to help the sweet blonde find her mate. "Happy fly up and see if you can spot him. This crowd is too big."

Lucy nibbled her lip and held onto Natsu's hand while Lisanna held the other so they wouldn't get separated in the swarm of people that were disembarking the train, along with those that were boarding it for the next departure. She searched every single face they passed while Natsu tried to get a clear direction on where to go, unable to take her eyes off of the people around them to see that Happy was flying back towards them.

"I see him!" Happy shouted as he flew back down to hover over Natsu. He kept his eyes trained on the pointed ears, tanned skin, and maroon hair of the familiar Slayer as he said, "He's headed for the train!"

Lucy whimpered and looked up at Happy, only to follow his gaze and catch a glimpse of Erik's left side. "E-Erik?" she whispered excitedly. Without another thought, Lucy broke away from the group and started pushing her way through the crowd. "ERIK!"

"Shit, Luce!" Natsu shouted, his grip tightening on Lisanna's hand as he dragged her behind them. "Happy, stay with her. Make sure she doesn't get lost in the crowd!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Erik, wait!" Lucy screamed, elbowing and shoving people out of her way when they tried to stop her from cutting sideways through the throng. Happy flew down beside her and quickly lifted her into the air, shooting forward over everyone's heads and right toward the man they were pursuing. Her heart began to sink when he boarded the train, and she pounded her hands on the closed doors when they reached them only a minute later.

"Miss, I have to ask you to step back. The train is departing."

"ERIK! Please! I'm here!" Lucy screamed as tears pooled in her eyes. She knew her soul was screaming just as loudly, so why wasn't he coming to her? She was desperate to stop that train from leaving, and shoved the attendant to the side while she started running down the length of the train, looking in window after window to try and catch a glimpse of him as it started to move. She finally saw him and the air rushed from her lungs. He was still as handsome as the day they had met all those years ago, but he looked so lost and confused while he held his head in his hands. She would know those hands and pointed ears anywhere, those scars around his wrists that barely peeked out from beneath the jacket he was wearing. "Please," Lucy whispered. "Erik, don't go…"

His left hand lowered to his chest, rubbing slow circles over his sternum with a pained expression on his face, and she felt the pain resonating within her as well. She followed the train as it left the station, her steps elongating until she was sprinting to try and keep up. Faster and faster, she ran and kept her eyes on the window to his compartment even when it moved past her. Extremely warm arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her to a stop, and Lucy struggled for only a moment before she heard his voice.

"Luce, stop!" Natsu shouted, sighing when she froze in place. "You almost ran off the edge. You coulda gotten yourself killed!"

Lucy's heart shattered while she stood on the edge of the platform, watching that train disappearing off into the distance. They had been so close! She'd felt the mating mark on her shoulder thrumming with energy the closer she got to him, but he hadn't seemed to notice her presence at all. Erik had told her during their first mission that her soul was completely different than anyone else's he'd ever heard. He had said that he would never have a problem finding her because her song was so unique. If that really was the case though, why hadn't he even looked her way? It was like she didn't exist! "E-Erik," she sobbed, turning around and burying her face in Natsu's scarf.

"We'll find him again, Lucy," Lisanna whispered as she hugged the blonde from behind, grimacing when she felt just how much Lucy was trembling. "We'll find him."

* * *

 _Home, love, family  
There was once a time_  
 _I must have had them too_

* * *

"Bix, wait," Gajeel said softly, pulling the Seith mage to a stop and taking a deep pull of the air. Toxic. Dangerous. Bitter in a way that made bile rise in his throat. "It's him."

"Who?" Bickslow asked while his babies floated protectively around the pair of them.

"That slithery little fuck." Gajeel sneered, seeing that familiar head of maroon hair coming around the bend in the path a few yards ahead of them making his blood boil. "Oi! What the fuck, man?!" he shouted, his lip curling further in disgust when he was simply ignored.

"Holy shit," Bicklsow whispered incredulously. He placed a hand on Gajeel's pierced forearm to keep the Slayer in place, feeling him tensed and ready to go pummel the guy into the ground just like every other male in the guild had been for the past month. They all saw Lucy as a dear friend or little sister, and her fiancé's disappearance had taken the brilliant light right out of her as time continued to pass without a trace of finding him. She had stopped taking missions completely while she searched for Erik, and Laxus had been making sure there was at least one group out that was specifically looking for the Poison Slayer while she was being forced to stay at the guild to rest. And here the guy was, on the far eastern side of Fiore, doing fuck only knows what. Still, even though Bickslow wanted to let Gajeel go and give Erik a piece of his mind, one thing made him pause. "His eye…"

Gajeel was just about to push Bickslow off of him, but those two whispered words—filled with so much confusion and concern—had him halting and narrowing his eyes while he took in Erik's appearance. The fucker looked the same as he always did, except for the fact that his right eye was closed over with a long scar running down his face. _'What in the hell happened to him?'_

Erik's gaze stayed locked on the ground in front of him as he roughly shouldered past the two men that were blocking his path. He didn't have time to deal with idiots that were in his way. Not when he was nearing four weeks since leaving Shirotsume and he still didn't have any idea where he could find Lucy. Every single day, he looked at the scrapbook. And still… Nothing. In the morning when he woke up, he would look through the pictures while eating his breakfast. The same thing at night before bed. By this point, he knew them all by heart. What year they were taken, every fine detail the camera had captured in both the foreground and background. And he wasn't any closer to her. With a growl, Erik sidestepped and whirled around to glare at the guy that had tried to make a grab for him.

The guy was about a head taller than himself, his skin tanned a few shades lighter than Erik's, muscles that looked powerful enough to bend metal on a whim, and piercings fucking _everywhere_. His eyebrows, the bridge of his nose, all down the cartilage in both ears, his forearms. Even his fucking chin. He was quite literally the perfect poster boy for a biker gang. All the guy was missing was a leather jacket and cigarette in his mouth… And a motorcycle, but that was beside the point. Needless to say, while Erik was willing to admit that the guy _looked_ intimidating, his soul sure as hell didn't sound intimidating in the slightest. In fact, this big burly guy that looked ready to eat him alive, with crimson eyes that were burning in barely contained rage, was probably the sappiest son of a bitch he'd ever heard.

 _'He's so concerned! Fuck, Bixy would make such a great dad. Wish we could have kids of our own. Those'd be some pretty fucking adorable babies… A little girl with my hair and those gorgeous green eyes of his… Or a boy with his hair and my red eyes. And they would both get that adorable little pouty look on their faces just like him when they get angry… Damnit, now I just wanna fuck him… How the hell did I get so goddamn lucky?'_

Aside from the revelation that the pierced man in front of him was gay and very clearly in love with the helmeted, skirt-wearing guy (Bixy?) standing next to him, Erik wasn't sure he had ever heard a rant about babies that was so goddamn _mushy_ in his life. It was almost sickening—not because it was about another man, but because he could quite literally feel cavities forming in his teeth the longer he listened to the guy.

"Where the fuck have you been, asshole? Bunny's worried fucking sick about your ass!" Gajeel snarled. "And don't get all fucking growly with me, cockstain. I should beat your ass just for—"

"Gajeel," Bickslow whispered, "Calm down."

Erik furrowed his brow when he tried to figure out just who the guy—Gajeel, apparently—was talking about. He couldn't get a clear picture of who the person was, just an image of some seriously voluptuous curves on a woman from the shoulders down while she was wearing a red, strapless leotard with a fluffy rabbit tail on the back. "Who the fuck is 'Bunny'?"

When Gajeel snarled again, Bickslow's grip on his arm tightened while he scowled at the Poison Slayer. "What?" he whispered. "You know exactly who the hell he's talking about. Cosplayer's been running all over the goddamn country looking for you… Speaking of which, why the hell are you all the way out here in the first place?"

Erik blinked slowly. "Cosplayer?"

"Bix, I'm gonna fuckin' kill him," Gajeel growled. Honestly, what kind of pathetic excuse for a Dragon Slayer couldn't even remember his mate's nicknames? Okay, sure. Lucy was a special case that was given a different nickname by every person she met, but still. That was beside the point. "This isn't a time to joke around, you Toxic Twat. Your mate's fucki—"

Erik's eye went wide, his whole body and soul stilling completely for only a moment before he was spurred into action. Faster than Erik knew he could move, Gajeel was pinned to the ground beneath him, his hands fisted in the raven-haired man's shirt. "You know Lucy?!" he asked desperately. _'Yes! Please, tell me he knows where to find her!'_

Gajeel was just about to snap the little shit's neck for tackling him, but the sheer amount of desperation that was hanging thick in the air—and the fact that Erik had just called Lucy by her name—made every bit of his anger die away in an instant. There was something seriously fucking wrong. And it wasn't just the fact that Erik was now missing an eye. "Seriously?" he asked slowly. "Since when you do call her that?"

Erik slowly sat up, letting go of Gajeel's shirt and plopping himself on the ground unceremoniously with a sigh.

Bickslow frowned and crouched down in front of the other two mages, tilting his head to one side when he saw how confused Erik seemed. "You're always teasing her about being like Tinkerbell…"

 _*.*_

 _"Erik, look! I got my guild mark!" Lucy said happily, her voice soft but no less high pitched than the squeal of joy she wanted to let loose._

 _He smirked down at the hand she was proudly holding a foot away from him, the bright pink guild mark sitting on the back of it and still glowing as the magic from applying it faded. He looked back up to see the brilliant smiling face he'd happened upon a week prior down in Hargeon, and shook his head with a small chuckle. "Told you he'd let you join."_

 _Lucy pouted and tried to lightly punch Erik's shoulder, only to miss when he dodged out of the way. "You're so mean to me," she huffed, internally berating him and wishing hours of pain and suffering on the Poison Slayer for—as she so eloquently thought—being a dildo._

 _Cobra chuckled again, then ignored the shocked souls all around them as he gently grabbed her newly marked hand. He turned it one way, then the other as he looked at the familiar mark that was a shade of bubblegum pink he didn't know was even possible to create. "Leave it to a blonde to get it in pink," he teased._

 _"Dick," Lucy grumbled, sighing when his grip tightened on her hand as she tried to pull it away._

 _"Well, it's official," Erik finally said, letting her hand slowly slide from his and silently marveling at how soft her skin was—which may or may not have been the reason he had even offered to bring her to the guild… He would deny it if anyone asked his true intentions, but there was no way in hell he would turn down a busty blonde like Lucy; especially not when her soul seemed to always sing the purest incarnation of a lullaby he'd ever heard._

 _"What? That you're a dick?" Lucy asked, turning her gaze up to meet Erik's mesmerizing indigo eyes when he chuckled again, and matching the amused quirk of his lips with one of her own._

 _"That too. But, I was gonna say you're officially a Fairy now, Tinkerbell."_

 _*.*_

Erik winced and put his head in his hands when he was pulled from the memory. _'That's not a tattoo on her hand… It's a guild mark!'_ That was, by far, the most vivid of any of the memories he had gotten back as of yet, and it seemed that the more detail there was involved, the more his skull would try to split itself in half just so his brain could hop out and run the fuck away. Without realizing that he was still around other people, since he'd spent the last four weeks travelling by himself, Erik whimpered in pain and quietly whispered to himself, "She's… She's a blonde… fairy?"

Gajeel and Bickslow could only sit and stare as Erik curled in on himself, placing his head between his knees as they drew up to his chest.

"I-I've gotta… find… her…" Erik growled, grimacing as he forced himself to stand up. His head began pounding, much worse than any other time he'd gotten a memory back, and he stumbled only to find himself being caught by six little tiki-faced totems that were floating in the air. The little souls inside of them were humming soothingly while they helped to steady him, almost as if they knew exactly what was wrong.

Gajeel took a slow step forward, his studded brows pulling together in true concern for his fellow Dragon Slayer. "You doin' alright, Cobra?"

Erik jolted at the use of that name, something that he knew Lucy had called him while they were on the ship that was going to that Tenrou place. "What did you call me?" he whispered.

"Cobra," Gajeel said slowly. "I heard Bunny call you that a while back. What the fuck happened to you, man?"

Erik blinked slowly and shook his head, wincing when that small movement caused a flash of pain to burn through his skull. "Nothing. I'm fine. I just need to get back to her…"

"Well, if you hurry back to the guild, you should be able to catch Cosplayer before she leaves again," Bickslow said, silently thanking his babies for catching Erik.

"Last I knew, Sparky, the Demon, and Salamander's team were keeping her ass there for a couple days to rest. She's been goin' crazy trying to find you…" Gajeel added.

"Sparky?" Erik muttered, "Demon? Salamander? Who the fuck are these people?"

Gajeel looked over at Bickslow, both mages rushing forward when Erik tried to pull away from the totems only to stumble again. "Alright, you're definitely not goin' alone," Gajeel said with a scowl. "We're taking your ass back to the guild, because if you don't make it there in one piece…"

"She's gonna skin us alive and set our asses on fire…" Bickslow finished, "Then probably skewer us and set us up in front of the guild…"

"She's way too good at that ritual sacrifice shit," Gajeel mused with a shudder. "I blame you for that."

"Wh-What…?" Erik asked slowly as his arms were thrown over Gajeel's and Bickslow's shoulders. He could hear them talking to him, but the voices slowly faded as his vision darkened until he finally lost consciousness.

* * *

 _Home, love, family  
I will never be complete until I find you_

* * *

"Sis, you're not going anywhere," Laxus sighed. "You just got back this morning. Look at the clock. Twenty minutes… You've been here twenty minutes, and you're already wanting to leave again?"

Lucy turned her weary gaze over to the blond behemoth sitting at the bar next to her. "I'm finishing this smoothie, then I'm heading out on foot to check the woods around town, Laxus. If he's on his way back, he might not have taken a train…"

"Luce, we don't know that he's on his way back though," Natsu said from her other side. "You've been gone all week. Just take a day to rest…"

"You definitely need it, Lucy," Mira added softly. "You look so tired… Have you been sleeping?"

Lucy simply shrugged. "Sometimes," she sighed in resignation. "It's kinda hard to do when he's not around since we mated… And when I know he's out there and not… Not here… w-with—"

Laxus frowned and pulled Lucy into his arms when she started crying for the second time that day. "We're gonna find him, little sis," he whispered tenderly, his worried gaze flickering up to his wife as she walked over. "Little Red, wanna hold onto her for me? I've gotta go talk to Gramps…"

Flare smiled softly and nodded, carefully pulling Lucy from Laxus' now slightly crumpled shirt and into her own arms. "Just let it all out, Blondie," she whispered. "You'll see him again, okay?"

Lucy nodded while she continued to cry, her arms carefully wrapping around her friend's waist and her tears trickling down her chest. "I-I just d-don't get it… H-He didn't even l-look at me… when we f-found h-him…" That was the worst part of the past four weeks. That day that she had chased after the train Erik had boarded, he didn't acknowledge her presence in the slightest. Add to that how pained he looked at the time while he was rubbing his chest… It almost looked like his heart was breaking right in front of her eyes. She hadn't gotten a single lead, or even a whisper of one since that day. While she had been wrapped in Natsu's and Lisanna's arms, Happy had flown over to the ticket booth and asked where that train had been headed, then pulled out the jewels from his own little fishy knapsack and bought all of them tickets for the next train headed to the same location. There were four stops along that route, all of them heading to the east. They had each taken one of the stops, searched the town and asked around to see if anyone had noticed Erik, then met up in the final town only to find that there wasn't a trace of the maroon-haired man anywhere.

"C'mon, let's head up to the office and we'll lay down," Flare said softly. "You and I both could use a nap, and I'm sure your little nephew here would love to get some quality time with you."

Lucy sniffled and let Flare lead her away from the bar and slowly up the stairs. She smiled down at the baby bump that was just starting to show, then placed her hand over Flare's stomach. "Did you guys find out if it's actually a boy?" she teased half-heartedly.

Flare smiled and shook her head. "No, but the Tesla Coil you call a big brother has assured me—repeatedly—that we're having a little boy. He says he's incapable of having girls. Something about how he's gonna lose his shit trying to keep everyone else's grubby hands off of her, so he had a very long talk with his balls to sort it out beforehand."

Lucy giggled and opened the door to Laxus' office, pulling away from Flare once they reached the far wall. She slid one of the bookcases to the side and pulled down the large and far-too comfortable murphy bed that Laxus had installed, then sat down and kicked off her boots. Once she and Flare were settled, with both women on their sides and facing each other, Lucy sighed dejectedly and looked up at the large reddish-orange eyes that always seemed to have a vacant expression—although, Erik had pointed out that Flare's brain was there only part of the time, he'd also explained that she was terrifyingly intelligent. "Flare," she whispered sadly, "Do you… Do you think he'll ever come home?"

A small, comforting smile spread across Flare's face while she nodded. Her hair loosened itself from the braid it was in and wrapped around Lucy like a blanket, pulling the exhausted blonde closer to her. "He'll come home, Blondie. And if, for whatever reason, he doesn't get his ass back here _very soon_ … Then Laxus is gonna go out looking himself. Your mate might come home a little charred, but your big brother will help you find him. That's why he's talking to Gramps right now."

Lucy slowly nodded, her complete exhaustion finally catching up with her while those warm and comforting locks tenderly rubbed her back. "Thanks, big sis…" she whispered as her eyes slid closed. "You two take such good care of me…"

Flare blushed and carefully pulled Lucy's head to her chest, her smile widening when the sleepy blonde sighed and cuddled closer to her. "We'll always watch out for you, Blondie," she whispered. "It's the least we can do."

* * *

 _One step at a time  
One hope, then another_  
 _Who knows where this road may go_

* * *

"Okay, so just how many nicknames does she have?" Erik asked, looking from Bickslow to Gajeel as they sat across from him in the train compartment.

"Hmm," Bickslow hummed in thought, "Well, there's… Blondie, Cosplayer, Luigi, Lushy, Princess…"

"Bunny or Bunny Girl," Gajeel added, "Lu, Cheerleader, Cosplay Queen, Busty, Top Heavy, Titania 2.0, Squish. Pretty sure Sabertooth's guildmaster has started calling her Tits McGee—but you might have nipped that shit in the bud, since Ryos told me that Sting 'miraculously' got food poisoning a couple months back."

"Then there's all the things _you_ call her," Bickslow chuckled. " _That_ list is way too fucking long… You guys have been together for years, and you came up with most of them before we went to Tenrou."

Erik blinked slowly, trying to absorb all of the information he was taking in. From what he'd been told when he finally woke back up, Bickslow and Gajeel were putting the mission they were about to take on hold so they could get him to Lucy. They had carried him for hours to get to the nearest town, then got a carriage to take them to the next town over that had a connection with the railway system. It would still be several hours before they were in Magnolia, so Erik had decided that he should try to get information about anything and everything that he couldn't remember. His eye narrowed when he looked at Gajeel again. "Why _exactly_ do you call her Bunny Girl?"

 _Phantom War. Breaking into a warehouse. Kidnapping the blonde he'd been sent to collect. Brutalizing her and beating her almost to death with his iron._

Erik felt a rage-filled growl escaping him, nearly incapable of recognizing it as his own while he watched guilt flash over the Iron Slayer's face for the briefest of moments. Before he could attack the bastard for that particular memory—of what was apparently the day Gajeel and Lucy met—one of his own decided to pop up.

 _*.*_

 _"Y-You f-found me…" she sobbed, clutching tightly to his shirt as she tried to control her shuddering breaths to minimize the pain in her broken ribs._

 _He smirked and carefully lifted Lucy into his arms. He paused for a moment, looking over to where the Fire and Iron Slayers had started fighting against each other, and nestled his nose in her hair. As he hopped onto Cubellios' back and flew away from the fight, he whispered, "I'll always find you, Tinkerbell. We're partners, remember?"_

 _Lucy smiled up at him, the pain she was in subsiding for a moment while she let herself get lost in those fathomless, indigo eyes. "You sound just like—"_

 _*.*_

Bickslow's totems shot forward when Erik lunged at Gajeel, knocking the wind out of the enraged Slayer and pushing him back into his seat. "Erik, just calm down… Gajeel—"

"Do you even know what he fucking _did_ to her when they met?!" Erik shouted. Bickslow's soul suddenly seemed to match the discordant minor intonation of Gajeel's when the day he'd met Lucy surfaced in his memory.

 _Fantasia… A toy store. Dolls flying everywhere. 'Just following orders…' Attacking Lucy and the ginger-haired man named Loke._

Bickslow grimaced and nodded, dropping his head in shame. "Yeah, I know…"

 _*.*_

 _A head of dirty, golden hair popped up over the edge of Cubellios' scales as she wrapped herself protectively around the prone Slayer who was half-buried in rubble from the deep crater surrounding him. A brilliant smile graced her face as Cubellios helped her climb over, then Lucy knelt down next to him and brushed her fingers through his sweaty hair. With a gentle and exhausted giggle, Lucy said, "Looks like I found you this time, Lost Boy."_

 _Erik groaned as she helped him sit up, watching as Lucy gingerly wiped away the grime from the charred pieces of his outfit. Most of it was intact, even after taking that blast of lightning that Makarov's shit of a grandson had sent out to destroy the town and everyone else with it. Hers, on the other hand, hadn't fared nearly as well. He shrugged his jacket off and threw it at her face, snorting when she scowled at him and put it on. "Very funny…" he growled, leaning most of his weight on the surprisingly strong blonde as she helped him to his feet. "You're a goddamn riot."_

 _Lucy laid her head on his shoulder while she smiled impishly up at him. "Y'know, I really am," she said, "Isn't that right, Cuby?"_

 _Cubellios hissed softly as her head lowered to Lucy's face, her tongue flicking out and pulling a soft laugh from the blonde. Lucy tenderly kissed her snout, then a thankful smile spread across her face as Cubellios slithered around so she and Erik could climb on._

 _Lucy settled herself in front of Erik, and he grumbled, "Damn women… Always ganging up on me…" He heard her heart fluttering when his arms wrapped around her, pulling her back flush against his chest, then he turned and lightly kissed her cheek. A wide grin spread over Erik's face when he quite literally heard her squeal internally over that small show of affection. It was loud as hell, and would have normally been cause for him to flick her in the head to cut that shit out, but he couldn't bring himself to care about that when it was a reaction he'd been hoping to get from her. "I guess I can deal with it though," he added, "As long as it's a hot little Fairy like you." He watched a deep blush settling itself across her cheeks as Cubellios flew into the air and made her way back to the guild, and thought, 'If that's how she reacts when I kiss her cheek, I wonder what she'll do when I ask her out later tonight…'_

 _*.*_

Erik's eyesight focused on the two guilty mages in front of him, and he growled, "What the fuck is _wrong_ with you two?!" Both of these guys had attacked Lucy at one point or another, but they talked about her as though she was one of their closest friends. "Any reason in particular you thought it was a good idea to attack her?"

Gajeel sneered, hating that his particularly violent past with Lucy was being brought up again, but it was Bickslow who quickly spoke. "Hey! At least _I_ wasn't trying to sleep with her like Laxus was!"

"Who the hell is—" Erik paused, his eye going wide when he got a very clear picture of what Laxus looked like from Bickslow's memory. Spiky blond hair, a large fur-lined coat, strong jaw, odd scar over his face, and stormy blue eyes. "Her big brother… Was trying to _fuck_ her?!"

The guilt that had consumed Gajeel and Bickslow was quickly washed away at the utter look of disgust on Erik's face, both of them laughing uproariously. "N-No, man! They're…" Bickslow said between laughs, his tongue lolling from his mouth, "They're not really related. He did that before they got to know each other. It wasn't until after the Grand Magic Games that they started acting like siblings."

While Erik slowly blinked, clearly trying to assimilate the new information, Gajeel said, "If it makes you feel any better, you tried to poison me for a solid month after I joined for what I did to Bunny... Fucking worked too, ya sneaky prick."

Bickslow nodded and chuckled. "Yeah, and you used your magic to somehow convince my babies that I was the Devil, and that I was going to eat them. It took months to get them to trust me again…"

Erik furrowed his brow, looking over to the windowsill in the compartment where the little totems had settled themselves, then shrugged. "Oh… Well then… That's cool." They were silent for a short while, then Erik said, "I know we're engaged… right?"

"Yeah, and mated," Gajeel said with a devious glint in his eye. "Good thing too, because Sparky was ready to kill you for not asking his permission first."

"Oh yeah!" Bickslow cackled, "He kept shocking you every time you got near her… And then Cosplayer ended up reminding him that you asked her out _way_ before he became her brother. You nearly pissed yourself from laughing so hard when she made him apologize to you in front of the guild!"

Erik slowly shook his head while he looked out the window, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a small smirk. Apparently, he'd chosen one hell of a woman if she was able to rein in that blond behemoth that had taken the moniker of 'older brother' so seriously. He wanted so badly to see her. He had so many questions that he wanted to ask her. But mostly… He ached to hold her and kiss those beautifully plump lips of hers. His soul hummed happily at the thought of being with Lucy again, and even though he couldn't really remember too much about her, Erik had a good feeling that it was about to change.

* * *

 _Back to who I was  
On to find my future_  
 _Things my heart still needs to know_

* * *

Erik looked around at the town they were walking through, noticing all of the things that had changed since his last memory in X782. There were more buildings, for sure. But the oddest part of it all was the fact that the town appeared to have been separated in half, and everything was at least a good twenty feet in the air above them. "What the hell is up with this place?"

"Gildarts must have just gotten to the guild," Bickslow chuckled. "He's got a tendency to lose control of his magic, so the town built a path that leads straight to the guild for him to walk on. That way he can't accidentally make everything around him explode. Cost a shit-ton of money to do it, apparently, but I think it's saved the city more in the long run."

"Are _all_ of you crazy fuckers so destructive?"

Gajeel gave him a feral grin. "Kinda what Fairy Tail does best. You and Bunny are probably the least destructive ones in the guild though. I think the most damage you two have done is blowing up a warehouse."

The trip was a short one, and Erik was finally staring anxiously up at the large doors in front of the Fairy Tail guild. This was it. He was actually going to see Lucy. "Is… Is she here?" he whispered.

Gajeel frowned and took a deep pull of the air. Morning dew, daisies, and a hint of bitterness that burnt the hairs in his nose even from this distance. She was definitely inside, but he couldn't understand how Erik wasn't able to tell just by scent alone. Realization dawned on him a moment later, and he chuckled as he thought, _'Oh yeah… He doesn't remember what she smells like…'_ He looked over at the maroon-haired mage, saw how tense he was, and reached over to open the door. Once it was opened enough, Gajeel grinned and pushed the distracted Slayer inside and shouted, "Bunny! I think I found a Lost Boy!"

Lucy turned from her conversation with Mira, feeling loads better after taking that nap with Flare, and her eyes landed on him. Pointed ears. Spiky maroon hair. Deliciously tanned skin. That familiar scowl. "E-Erik?" she whispered, a wide smile taking hold when he turned to look at her. With a squeal, Lucy scrambled off of her barstool and ran across the totally silent guild, lunging at her mate and tackling him to the ground.

Erik grunted once he hit the ground, his arms instantly wrapping around her bare waist to make sure she didn't get hurt in the fall. The first breath he took was filled with the most amazing scent he'd ever come across. That morning dew and daisies scent he'd smelled all over the apartment was definitely Lucy, but it was the toxic tinge to it that had his mouth watering and a contented purr rumbling through him. An eagle seemed to take flight in her soul once his nose brushed against her neck, but her confusion instantly overtook it while she pulled back with a frown. He looked into those deep chocolate eyes of hers, his eye wide in shock at just how much more beautiful she was in person. "Lucy" he whispered, hoping this wasn't some sick twisted dream that he would wake up from only to find himself in another hotel room. "I… I really found you…"

Lucy's head tilted to the side, her heart racing with happiness while her mind was trying to figure out just why he'd let her tackle him. Normally, Erik would just brace himself and catch her. So why hadn't he done that this time? She felt a twinge of guilt when she saw that his eye was closed in a wince, and once his words registered, her confusion only intensified. "Whatever happened to 'Tink'? C'mon, Pan… Where the hell have you been, anyway?"

 _*.*_

 _"C'mon, Pan. Take my hand, and we'll fly!" Lucy said happily, reaching her hand out to gently grasp his._

 _"Crazy wench," Erik laughed, "You're not dragging my ass with you just because you're gonna kill yourself!"_

 _Lilting laughter filled the air as Lucy squeezed his hand. She turned and wrapped her arms around his waist, sighing happily when he leaned down to kiss her. "But fairies fly, Erik!"_

 _"Maxi pads and Red Bull do the same fucking thing," he chuckled. "Does that mean you're both?"_

 _Lucy blanched and pulled her head back to gape at him. "That's disgusting… Do you have any idea how many cans of Red Bull one of those things can hold?" she whispered in horror. When Erik shook his head with a grin on his face, she whispered, "Too many…"_

 _He blinked slowly and asked, "And you'd know that shit, how?"_

 _"Research. A **very** strange day of research… That may have involved a couple bottles of tequila with Levy."_

 _"'Nuff said," Erik replied. "Now, about these fairies flying…"_

 _"That's what I am, right? Your little blonde fairy?"_

 _Erik laughed again, taking in her bright smile and warm brown eyes shining with glee. The wind whipped past them, sending the sounds of the birds in the surrounding forest singing through the air. Her hair billowed off to one side, catching the sunlight and making her glow as though she was an angel. That sweet lullaby of her soul intensified the longer he looked at her. It was always a perfect harmony, so calm and soothing. Another gust of wind sent water misting over the pair of them, and his next breath was filled with her scent when he leaned down to kiss her again._

 _"I love you, Tink," he whispered tenderly, grinning when her face lit up at hearing those three little words for the first time. Why he hadn't said them sooner was something he couldn't understand, because seeing and hearing just how strongly she felt once he said it made him happier than he could have ever imagined. "You'll always be my little fairy."_

 _"I-I... I love you too," Lucy whispered back, giggling happily and leaning up to capture his lips in another tender caress. Her hands smoothed over the multitude of scars on his back. "Now, come with me. Tink is gonna help you fly!"_

 _Erik rolled his eyes and nodded. "Alright," he sighed dramatically, "I guess I can let you drag me to my death..." He paused and let his gaze drift down to see where her chest was pressed against his, grinning lecherously as he looked at the dark purple triangles of material that barely covered her chest. "But I'm getting a picture of you in this new bathing suit. You can put it in my casket."_

 _Lucy grinned excitedly and took a step back, lacing her fingers with his as they stepped over to the edge of the waterfall. She peered down and looked at the lake below, then over to where they had set their bags down when she decided it was time for a swim before they went back to the guild from their mission. "Or you can keep it in your wallet for those late nights with a bottle of Jergen's," she teased, then squealed when Erik lunged at her and threw both of them over the edge of the waterfall._

 _Even with how much he had fought jumping over that waterfall, once he and Lucy were in the air, Erik felt like he was on top of the world. He didn't take his eyes off of her though. The giddy smile on her face as she laughed filled him to the brim with happiness, and their eyes locked just before they finally hit the water below._

 _*.*_

Erik frowned when his eye refocused on Lucy's worried face. "I... I woke up in a hospital in Shirotsume," he said sadly. "I saw your picture in my wallet and... I've been looking for you, but... I didn't know where to go..." That familiar sting of tears made him flinch, and he quickly brought his hand up to press the heel against his scar-covered eye. He took a shaky breath, his mouth thinning into a grimace, and added, "I couldn't remember anything... But, I... I knew I had to find you..."

Lucy slid off of Erik and pulled him up to sit next to her, ignoring everyone around them as she slowly pulled his hand from his face. Her eyes widened and filled with tears when he lifted his head, and she finally realized that what she had thought was him wincing in pain was actually a scar closing his right eye. "Wh-What... Happened?" she whispered, slowly bringing her fingertips up to run over the skin. "It's gone... Oh god, who did this to you?!"

Erik shrugged and looked away again, suddenly not having a damn clue what he should say. He'd had so many questions he wanted to ask her, so much he wanted to know, but one look at the tears in her eyes made him feel like he'd failed her somehow. His gaze shot up and he gaped at Lucy when he heard the sadness in her soul turn into an astounding amount of rage. "Lucy, are yo—"

"Motherfucker," Lucy whispered in a hiss. "That's why there were bloody bandages at the apartment..." She leaned forward and brought both hands to his face, tenderly pressing her fingers to the scar there and nearly growling when he flinched. Yay for that particular side effect of being mated to a Dragon Slayer. Overprotective and fucking growling at things. "If I ever find the little fucker that did this to you, I'm shoving barbed wire down his goddamn urethra and burning his fucking skin off with sulfuric acid... No one hurts my baby and gets away with it."

While everyone else in the guild shuddered at the threat that so easily passed her lips, each of them thinking about the fact that Lucy ended up letting Virgo punish whoever hurt Erik, the Poison Slayer was finding himself both disturbed by the mental picture her unspoken words were painting... And insanely turned on.

Lucy was seething as she started running her hands carefully over Erik's torso and arms to see if there were any other injuries that hadn't healed completely. When Erik flinched again, she really did growl. "It's been a month, why haven't you healed up yet? Did you not have enough poison? Erik, what's—"

"Uh, Bunny? Take a breath," Gajeel said cautiously, shuddering and not-so-secretly taking a step behind Bickslow when she turned her scowl up to him. "Just sayin'... Your mate is confused as hell, and he's been trying to find you this whole time..."

"Cosplayer, he doesn't even remember joining the guild..."

When Lucy turned back to him, Erik nodded at her train of thought concerning not even remembering her—how she hadn't come into his life until he'd already been part of Fairy Tail for two years, the fact that he wouldn't know who she was, how happy they were together, or even what happened to Cubellios. Lucy, he was quickly coming to realize, had an uncanny ability to surprise him; and it happened yet again when she pulled him into her arms and started running her fingers through his hair while she started crying more insistently. "Please don't cry..." he whispered.

"Why shouldn't I?" Lucy sobbed, "You're hurt and… and you don't remember me..."

Erik hesitantly wrapped his arms around Lucy's waist, sighing when she cuddled closer to him in an instant. "Because it hurts to see you like this," he whispered softly. "I get flashes sometimes, and everything but my fucking _brain_ remembers you. We're mated, so there's no way I could ever really forget you. I just… I don't have any memories of the shit we did together..." He whimpered when she only started crying harder, and felt a charge of static run through the air when a shadow covered both himself and Lucy.

"So you _finally_ fucking came back," Laxus growled, his hands sparking dangerously as he stepped around Gajeel and Bickslow in the doorway to the guild. "You don't even deserve to be near her after the shit she went through trying to find you..."

"Laxus, man," Bickslow said carefully, "It's not his fault—"

"Bullshit!" Laxus roared. "She fucking saw him on that train, and he acted like she didn't even exist! What the hell was so important that you couldn't even pick up a lacrima and at least _call_ her?! Shitty little bastard… Do you have _any_ idea how much she's cried since you fucking disappeared?!"

Erik grimaced and closed his eye, pulling Lucy closer to himself when those words cut into him. The searing tears he had been fighting against came back more forcefully than before, and there was nothing he could do to stop them this time. He deserved the pain that came with it, and so much more for being the cause of Lucy's suffering. "I'm sorry, Lucy," he whispered, burying his nose in her hair, "I'm sorry I can't remember... I'm s-so fucking s-sorry..."

"Laxus," Bickslow whispered, throwing a hand on the Slayer's arm when he tensed to pull Erik away from Lucy. He pulled it back just as quickly when he got shocked, hissing in pain and cursing under his breath.

Gajeel growled and pushed Bickslow behind himself, gaining Laxus' attention with a punch to the side of his head. "He's got fuckin' amnesia, Sparky. He's been trying to find Bunny this whole time, and didn't have a fucking clue where to look for her. He didn't even know her goddamn _name_ when he woke up."

"Yeah, I believe that about as much as Ivan bringing his sorry ass down here on fucking Christmas so the kiddies can sit on Santa's lap," Laxus sneered. "He left her ass here to do fuck only knows what and—"

Erik growled and pulled away from Lucy to stand and glare at the irate blond Slayer. "Look, Lightning Rod. I don't give a shit what you _think_ I was doing, but I'd never fucking abandon Lucy. I woke up in that goddamn hospital thinking it was thirteen years ago, and the only clue I had about what the hell I'd been doing in all that time was a picture of her and a key to that apartment."

"Then why didn't you just stay there?" Laxus growled. "She was there two weeks ago."

"Because there was a note in some scrapbook that told me she was waiting for me! So, I packed up some shit and booked it! I didn't even know her goddamn name until some lady with a baby asked how she was doing!" Erik shouted, poison slowly beginning to leak from his mouth as his anger rose. When a gentle and familiar hand touched his back, he flinched and stepped away, snarling as he whirled around only to see Lucy's tear-filled eyes looking back at him. The pain that lanced through her soul at his actions—of stepping away from her touch—only made him feel worse. "Shit…" he whispered. "Lucy, I'm sorry…"

Lucy shook her head quickly and gave him a tremulous smile. "I-It's okay, Sugar. I couldn't touch your back when we met either… I understand."

"No, this is bullshit, sis," Laxus growled. "How are you just gonna believe him on this? Mate or not, it doesn't excuse what he fucking did."

"Fuck off, Spark Plug," Erik growled.

"Make me, asshole," Laxus growled in return.

Lucy's eyes widened when lightning and poison started filling the air around them. "Erik, stop! You could kill everyone here!" she shouted, rushing to stand between the two Slayers. She wrapped her arms around Erik and started humming his favorite song in her head, shivering when the poison he was letting off soaked into her skin. _'Fuck, I forgot how good that feels…'_

Erik froze and stared down at Lucy incredulously. "How good what feels?" he whispered.

Lucy blushed and lifted his fingers to her lips, being careful not to touch his wrist, and closed her eyes while she slowly inhaled the poison leaking from his fingertips. She smiled softly and sighed, feeling like she was finally complete with her arms around him. When her eyes fluttered open, Lucy couldn't help but giggle at the vacant look in Erik's eye while he stared at her lips. "Your poison. It's the only kind I like more than sugar."

Erik's mouth quirked slightly when he looked back up into Lucy's eyes. "Good to know."

"Now, let's go see Master and find out if there's anything to be done about this memory loss," Lucy said sweetly, moving away and lacing her fingers with his. She turned to frown at Laxus, seeing him staring at her as though she had grown a second head. "If that wasn't proof enough for you, then I don't know what else he could possibly do to show you he's telling the truth. You know he would have just used his other magic to make you shut up if you pissed him off enough. And Erik _never_ tries to challenge you with his poison. You owe him an apology when this is all sorted out, Laxus Dreyar. Otherwise, I'm not talking to you for a month."

Erik bit his lower lip to stifle his laughter when he heard a slew of whines and curses filter through Laxus' mind at being scolded in front of the guild. He took a quick step away from Lucy when she tried to elbow him, then chuckled and moved back to her side when she pouted at him. "Gotta be faster than that," he whispered challengingly.

"Erik, child," Makarov said happily once the young couple was standing in front of him, his aged eyes sadly taking in the scar that ran over the Poison Slayer's eye.

"Who's the old man?" Erik whispered to Lucy.

"Erik, this is Master Makarov," Lucy said sweetly. "Master, he—"

"So I heard," Makarov replied, keeping his gaze on Erik. Although the tanned mage looked the same as he had a month ago—scarred eye notwithstanding—his posture was nearly identical to the day he had joined. Then again, the only real difference in it at this point was that it was Lucy by his side and not his large purple snake, Cubellios. "What is the last thing you remember, Erik?"

Erik frowned and narrowed his eye at the older man, wondering just why he couldn't get a clear read on his soul. With a sigh, deciding that the bastard probably had some sort of protection against his particular brand of magic, he cleared his throat and said, "The last thing I remember is walking through the woods with Cubellios on our way to…" He paused and his frown deepened. That was where the memory got hazy. There were just snippets of the same memory from that point on, but he had to focus on pulling those little bits out. "We were wandering around, looking for a guild to join… And a woman with red hair found us… She was… She was wearing armor, maybe?"

"That would be Erza," Makarov supplied, smiling and pointing to the end of the bar where the Requip mage was eating another slice of strawberry cake while she watched everything unfold.

Erik turned to look at the woman, and his eye widened when he realized she was the woman in the picture that had named them as siblings. His stomach churned when he heard a portion of her soul screaming in terror while it was locked in a box of sorts. _'That sounds like the Tower… Was she there too?'_ He nodded slowly and turned back to Makarov. "Yeah, her. And then she gave me some directions on a piece of paper and left… It's all blank after that."

"That is the day you joined the guild, child," Makarov sighed. Erza had found Erik and Cubellios just before they entered Magnolia, and when he had asked if she knew of a mages' guild nearby, she had pointed him in the direction of Fairy Tail. He had apparently been concerned about everyone's reaction to Cubellios, but Erza had assured him that she would be considered another member of the guild if he chose to join. Makarov knew it would take some time to figure out just what had happened to Erik's memories, especially since Wendy was out on a mission right then. He looked at Lucy for a moment, seeing the dozens of questions in her eyes. "I will contact Porlyusica to see if she has any suggestions on a course of action until Wendy returns. She can also create an artificial eye for you, so—"

"No," Erik said quickly, then turned to gape at Lucy when he realized she said the same thing.

 _"I might not like that you lost your eye, but… You look really sexy like this."_ Lucy blushed and kept her gaze on the floor, a small smile on her lips when Erik squeezed her hand.

"No," Erik repeated as he turned back to see the guildmaster grinning at him. "It's been like this for a month, and I've pretty much adjusted to the lack of depth perception… Thanks, though…"

"Master, will Wendy be able to get his memories back?" Lucy asked softly.

Makarov sighed and shrugged. "I haven't a clue, child. She should be able to if there is an injury that is keeping them out of reach, but…"

"If it's a spell of some sort then she might not be able to do anything," Erik finished, his face hardening at the thought of not regaining what he knew were some very happy memories with Lucy. "I get bits and pieces sometimes, if that helps…"

"Then there is hope that she will be able to heal whatever is causing your memory loss," Makarov said with a grin. "Now, since you've finally returned, I believe it's time to welcome you back in true Fairy fashion." He paused and took a deep breath, then shouted, "It's time for a party!"

* * *

 _Yes, let this be a sign  
Let this road be mine  
Let it lead me to my past_

* * *

It was several hours later that Lucy and Erik were finally able to sneak away from their celebrating guild mates. Lucy led him to their normal table, tucked in the farthest corner of the guild just next to where Gajeel usually sat eating his metal, and sighed once she sat down. Normally, she would have instantly tucked herself under Erik's arm and cuddled right up to him, but she didn't want to push him too much if he had mentally reverted back to the mild aversion to touch he'd had when they met—or, worse than when they had met, she supposed, since it had taken him two years just to allow anyone within a few feet of him if he wasn't in one of the guild brawls.

Erik frowned at where Lucy's mind had gone, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder once he sat down beside her. He chuckled at the startled expression on her face, and said, "I know you're not gonna hurt me, Lucy. I'm just trusting my previous judgment to let you close, even though you're right about that…"

Lucy smiled up at him and snuggled a little closer, sighing happily when she could hear his heart beating against his chest. It was a little faster than normal, but she figured it was because he was being touched when his memories of the progress he'd made were gone.

"Do you think you could help me fill in some of the blanks?" Erik whispered uncomfortably. He didn't understand exactly why he felt nervous all of a sudden, but he knew it had something to do with the fact that he needed to rely on someone that was essentially a stranger. _'Not entirely,'_ he reminded himself as he looked down at the mating mark on her shoulder, _'I just can't remember everything right now… That's all it is. She's still the woman I love.'_

"Of course," Lucy said happily. "Ask me anything."

"What happened to Cubellios?" There were far too many questions concerning Lucy herself, and he knew that he would probably spend hours relearning everything about her. "Did… Is she okay?"

Lucy sat up a little bit and pointed over to the bar, smiling when she saw Kinana looking their way with a rarely seen reminiscent smile. "See the purple-haired lady over there?" she asked. When Erik grunted, she said, "That's Cubellios. She goes by Kinana now."

Erik's eye widened, his jaw dropping while he looked at the woman that he'd seen pictured with himself at the apartment. "That's… How?"

"Well," Lucy said softly. "Cubellios got sick before we went to Tenrou for the S-Class trials, so you had to leave her here with Porlyusica. So, at some point during the seven years we were frozen on the island—"

"Wait, what?" Erik asked in confusion. "Frozen on an island?"

"Yeah," Lucy nodded sadly. "A huge dragon attacked, and the guild's first master showed up as a ghost and saved us. But the spell she used kept us frozen in stasis for seven years…"

Erik nodded slowly. That would explain why he didn't look a whole thirteen years older than his memories. If he had been frozen in some sort of spell for seven years, then he was technically only missing six years' worth of memories. It also explained the huge time gap in the scrapbook, and maybe even why Lucy had added years to the captions.

"Anyway, she ended up turning into a human while we were gone," Lucy continued. "We figured out that Kinana was actually Cuby just before the Grand Magic Games in X791—it was a couple months after we got back. You kept saying that you felt like someone was calling out to you, but you couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then someone tried to attack me while you were out on a mission with Natsu—" She paused and pointed over to the salmon-haired Fire Dragon Slayer that was in an arm-wrestling match with Gray. "—And Kinana got really upset when she found out what happened because I came into the guild all bloodied up. She ended up collapsing and turned into a snake right there. As it turns out she was cursed, and if she gets too upset now she'll turn back into a snake for a few days."

"So… she wasn't really a snake that whole time?"

"Not really," Lucy said gently, furrowing her brow when she looked up to see a strange emotion sitting on Erik's face. She couldn't place what it was, but it almost looked like he was saddened by the news. "You guys are still best friends, Erik. She doesn't remember much about when she was a snake, but she gets bits and pieces here and there. She does remember how you met, and helping you get out of the Tower, and you two just worked around what she couldn't remember."

"What about Erza?" he asked softly, his brow furrowing as he looked over to see the woman in question bashing two guys' heads together while she scolded them. "There was a picture at the apartment..."

Lucy smiled again, drawing slow circles on the hand caressing her shoulder. "She's your sister, like Laxus is my brother. You told me that when you joined the guild, you waited for her to come back and asked why you heard the Tower in her soul... When you guys realized that you both grew up there, you became inseparable."

"She was... She was there too?" Erik asked. His eye locked into Erza's, and he watched with no small amount of trepidation as she walked over to the table he and Lucy were sitting at. She held so much power and authority in her stride, but her face was a stern mask that he could tell had been created to lock the Tower away.

Erza smiled as she sat down at the table, then stuck out her gauntlet-covered hand and said, "Erza Scarlet. I don't know how much Lucy has told you, but I'm willing to answer any questions you might have."

Erik looked down at the gauntlet, then up to her face. She was absolutely ecstatic that he had returned, but the knowledge that he had no memory of her, or even of Lucy, had her soul wailing and the Tower growing with her inner torment. He slowly lifted his hand, placing it carefully in hers, and tightly gripped it when she tried to pull away after their salutations were complete. "You're my sister?"

Erza nodded quickly, a pained smile taking place on her lips. "It seems we have more in common now," she said, lifting her other hand and pointing to her right eye. "Master offered you an artificial one because they had already made one for me..."

"When..."

"When else?" Erza asked softly. When his eye widened as realization dawned on him, she lowered their joined hands to the table, bringing her other hand up and requipping out of her armor to feel the familiar calluses on his fingers and palm. She sighed as she looked down at the scar on his wrist that was peeking out from under his sleeve. "Lucy has helped you a great deal since you brought her to the guild, Erik," she said with a fond smile. "I did what I could in the two years before that, but... There's only so much a sister can do."

Erik nodded slowly as he looked at their joined hands, then whispered, "Did your family sell you to them? Is that why you've got a name?"

"No, I was taken. A friend in the Tower gave me the name because of my hair." Erza paused, lightly squeezing his hand and smiling when Erik lifted his saddened eye to meet her gaze. "Just as I gave it to you. You've been Erik Scarlet since X782."

"You... I..." Erik sputtered, then looked from Erza to Lucy when they both laughed. "Really?"

Lucy smiled and nodded. "Yep. And you'll be giving it to me when we finally get married," she said sweetly. "I'll be the first Scarlet that doesn't have red hair!"

"Hey, Titania!" Gajeel bellowed from the bar. "There's more cake up here!"

Erik blinked when Erza ripped her hands from his and made a mad dash across the guild hall, instantly taking residence at the same stool she'd been in when he was talking to Makarov. "What the fuck?" he whispered absently.

Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes. "Erza has a huge sweet tooth. Cake is apparently always on her mind."

Erik nodded then said, "Wait... _She's_ Titania?"

"Yep, why?"

"Because I've heard of her, even before joining the guild I guess... She's a monster..."

"Yes," Lucy giggled, "I nearly had a heart attack when she threatened to maim me if I dared to besmirch your honor..."

"You're fucking kidding!" Erik cackled. When Lucy shook her head, her laughter increasing in volume along with his. "So, why is it that _you're_ called Titania 2.0?"

"Huh? Oh! You mean Scary Lucy?" Lucy rolled her eyes and said, "That's what people call me when I'm angry. I think it was Laxus or Gajeel that started that one, and you usually just call me Scary Lucy or something about being a goddamn psycho."

"That's because you're terrifying when you're mad, Luce!" Natsu shouted happily as he ran by, holding Gray's boxers in his hand while the naked mage chased him.

"Yeah, you even made Master cry!" Happy added while running interference and slowing Gray down by shoving Juvia in his path. "But, that could be because he thought you were gonna sit on him..."

"I'M NOT FAT, YOU MANGY FURBALL!" Lucy bellowed, her face turning red in her agitation when Happy laughed and flew away. "One of these days, I'm just going to cover him in spit until he swears not to say it anymore..." she grumbled.

Before Erik could respond, a white-haired barmaid came over to their table with a tray of food and a sweet smile. He recognized her face and the pink dress she was wearing from the picture of his and Lucy's first mission together, but there wasn't a name. As if she'd read _his_ thoughts, the woman smiled sweetly and said, "My name's Mira Jane, Erik. Everyone calls me Mira, though."

Erik nodded shortly and took a breath to say something, then his eye closed when he smelled what was on that tray in her hands. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, but he knew that he'd mow down whoever he needed to so he could get a bite of it. "What in the name of all that is holy is on that fucking plate... And who do I have to kill for it?"

Lucy smiled up at Mira and giggled while she sat up. "Looks like someone's a little hungry for your delicious cooking, Mira." She turned to see Erik's eye was still closed and said, "Sugar, you're smelling our food. Mira adds whatever element she needs to for the Dragon Slayers' food, since you guys need to eat it so often."

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" When Lucy shook her head and smiled at him, he turned to look up at Mira. "That's… damn…"

Mira let out a small laugh and grabbed the first plate from the tray. "Erik, I wanted to try something different for when you came back, but with the circumstances I figured I'd make you the same thing you ate when you joined the guild. So, you've got Paneed Veal with Amatoxin cream sauce, and a side of sautéed Lily of the Nile leaves." She paused and grabbed his drink, then added, "And a beer with chlorine."

When Erik just continued staring at Mira, Lucy quickly realized that he was caught up in listening in on Mira's soul. Which was something that he _really_ didn't need to experience on his first day back.

 _"Blonde hair, tan skin, brown eyes."_

 _"No, I say purple instead of brown. It'll make the eyes pop more."_

 _"His hair and eyes, her complexion, and **definitely** his ears. It'll be perfect!"_

 _"No! Twins! Triplets even! Oh, so many babies! They all need his ears though!"_

 _"Oh, I agree, Sitri. Then the little girls could dress up as elves for Halloween! And they wouldn't need to use any of those stupid prosthetics!"_

 _"Really? **That's** where you went with those ears on adorable babies? How about little boys with—"_

 _"There's nothing wrong with wanting to dress them up like elves for Halloween, Halphas!"_

 _"Don't make me come over there, Sitri… Good. Now, what about little boys with—"_

Lucy lightly elbowed Erik to gain his attention, and when he jumped and stared at her, she simply smiled at Mira and said, "He's been getting little flashes of his memories, so he zones out sometimes."

 _"_ _Ignore it at all costs, Erik. Those are demon souls that Mira uses for her magic, and they apparently know when you're listening... Also, Halphas isn't above making you cry for listening in while they're plotting our future. No, I'm not kidding… She's done it before. It took me two hours to get you to unlock the bathroom door, and you wouldn't talk to me about what she said to you for a week. Trust me, that's something you don't want to remember…"_

Mira smiled sweetly and grabbed the other plate on the tray. "Lucy, you haven't tried this yet. I made you the same thing, but you've got a shitake cream sauce since I know you don't like having too much poison at once. I did add a little ground hemlock in the sauce though. Gives it that extra kick that it's missing without the Amatoxin. And some jasmine tea."

Erik stared at Lucy in amazement while she took a bite of some poisonous greens, and his breath stuttered when her eyes slid closed and she moaned softly. He shook his head and quickly took a bite of his veal, and his eye widened when those potent toxic flavors burst across his taste buds. "Fuck, Mira," he said once he swallowed. "You're amazing…"

Mira laughed and shook her head, holding the tray to her chest as she said, "This is a much better recipe than what you used to eat back then. Since you and Lucy became a team, she started experimenting with different poisons to see what the best way to prepare them was."

Lucy blushed and nodded as she took a sip of her tea, then sheepishly admitted, "Yeah, but you had to be there with me in case I forgot that I had put something poisonous in the whole batch… Since that first time I almost got my dumb ass killed for taste testing the soup…" She paused and sighed as she glared at her plate. "Stupid snake venom trying to kill me…"

"Seriously?" Erik deadpanned. "You forgot that you put snake venom in the soup?"

"One, yes," Lucy countered. "And two? That's the exact same thing you said after you got the poison out…" When she saw him raise the eyebrow over his good eye, Lucy giggled. _"I didn't realize until we were together that you didn't have to actually suck on my neck to get it out… Sneaky bastard. I had a hickey for a week, and Mira lost her mind trying to force me to bear your children right then and there…"_

Erik paused mid-chew to look at Lucy, seeing a fond smile and a light blush on her cheeks while she replayed the memory of that day. Honestly, he was pretty impressed with himself for doing something so damn risky when she'd ingested snake venom. That is, until he heard her own thoughts during that time that were running along the lines of: _'Oh god, yes. Suck harder. Fuck, that feels good… Mmm, who would have thought those sharp teeth would turn me on this much? Oh shit, he's licking me?! Damn… Okay… Control yourself a little, Lucy… Just. A. Lit—If he doesn't let go soon, I'm fucking him right here!'_ He cleared his throat and waited until Mira walked away, then asked, "When exactly did that happen?"

"Hmm? Oh, the snake venom thing?" When Erik nodded, she smiled sheepishly and said, "About a month after I joined. So, it was still a couple of months before we started dating."

"I see," Erik answered with a smirk. "So, we've been together for..."

"Our anniversary is in October," Lucy said. "Not including the time skip, it's almost five years. You proposed on New Years. Right at midnight."

"And that was when I marked you?"

Lucy nodded happily. "It threw me off though, because you were being a total sweetheart all day," she laughed. "I thought you'd been possessed."

"Am I really that much of an asshole to you?" Erik whispered sadly.

"No, Pan. You're a sweetheart when you wanna be, but I fell in love with your sense of humor." She took another bite of her food, then paused and burst into a fit of laughter.

"Lucy, I heard what you were thinking, and I'm fucking lost…" Erik said softly. "Your shit just… stopped working… And then you started laughing…" He watched in shock and a little trepidation when Lucy just laughed harder, trying to listen in and figure out what had caused her brain to malfunction. The only thing he could hear from her was more. Fucking. Laughter. Inside of her head. All the way down to her soul. _'Since when can someone's fucking **soul** laugh?!' _ If he had thought it was creepy to hear a bunch of demons talking to one another about their plans for his and Lucy's future children, this one took the cake. He had no way to even put into words the level of creepiness this shit had reached, because it was all Lucy's voice—all her own laughter—just at different pitches all at once. The worst part about it all though, was the fact that even this weird noise coming from her soul was making him hard. _'Really? This is sexy somehow?! REALLY?! **How** am I getting turned on by this?!'_

"I'm… I'm sorry!" Lucy laughed, wiping away her tears and fanning her face. She took a deep breath, then said, "You said you know why you call me Tinkerbell, right?"

"Yeah, because you're a blonde fairy… And you look sexy as hell in a green mini-dress."

Lucy blushed and whispered, "It was _your_ idea for me to dress up that way, y'know."

"Wait," Erik whispered, "You… really wore a… What the… Please tell me there's a picture of this somewhere." He had been joking about the mini-dress. Well, not necessarily _joking_ , but he was only going based off of his imagination concerning her looking like the little fairy. Then again, that mental picture he got was probably the exact reason he'd actually gotten her to wear it.

Lucy's blush deepened as she said, "Yes, there's a whole album at home of everything you've gotten me to wear so far, Erik. That one seems to be your favorite though."

"You mean you wore it—"

"More than once? Yes. Wings and little green shoes included. We chose not to deal with pixie dust… Because glitter is the fucking devil."

Erik nodded in agreement. Even he knew just what glitter could do if not properly handled… while wearing a hazardous material suit. Even then, he was sure the little particle of satanic shininess would find a way to weasel their way in and stick to a person. "Question before you keep going with this explanation…" When Lucy nodded, he said, "Just what have I gotten you to wear?"

"Let's see… I've been Tinkerbell, a cheerleader, a maid, a cop, a firefighter, Alice in Wonderland, a cat—which was a weird request, until I realized you were doing it to piss Loke off." Lucy laughed when she saw Erik's jaw dropping with each costume she named, his eye glazing over as he very clearly pictured her in each costume. "A ballerina, an angel, a devil, a prisoner, a go-go dancer, a dominatrix, Belle with you as the Beast, a fucking dragon… You know, I guess I can't yell at Bickslow for calling me 'Cosplayer,' now that I think about it…"

"… Wow…" Erik said breathlessly. "I should have waited to ask you that one…"

Lucy laughed again and said, " _So_ … Because you kept calling me Tinkerbell, which you eventually shortened to Tink, I started calling you Peter Pan—or Pan. You've got the pointed ears, plus you're a mischievous little shit when you want to be."

"Alright," Erik said with a quick shake of his head to try and dismiss the images that were whirling around in there. "And the whole 'brain-stopping' thing you pulled?"

Lucy giggled and lifted her fork that had a few Lily of the Nile leaves on it. "Mira said you were eating these when you first joined. And she already told you that I've been fiddling around with different poisonous plants and chemicals to figure out how to season your food. Because of that, I know that the other name for these is Peter Pan. So, even though you fought me calling you that in the beginning, it looks like I was right all along. You've _always_ been Peter Pan."

"That's just wrong…" Erik scowled at her, then quickly leaned forward and stole the poisoned plant from her fork. "Delicious, but wrong…"

Lucy smiled and lifted her thumb to his lip, then swiped away a small bit of moisture that had dripped onto it from what he'd just eaten. Without thinking, because it was what she normally did anyway, Lucy popped her thumb into her mouth to clean her thumb off, then paused when she caught Erik watching her with rapt attention. "What?"

"Nothing, just… You keep surprising me, and it's weird as hell."

Lucy finished the last bite of her food and said, "You told me before that it's because I think too much. You can't always hear everything that's going on inside my head, so I end up surprising you more often than not. You'll get used to it, Erik. I'm the only one that does it."

A few minutes later, Mira came by the table with a freshly chlorinated beer for Erik and another cup of tea for Lucy. "How was everything?"

"Delicious," they answered in unison.

"You know, Erik," Mira said as she put all of the empty dishes on the tray, "I don't know why you didn't just look at your guild mark. That would have given you a clue on where to go while you were looking for Lucy."

Erik frowned and looked down at himself as if he could see his skin through his clothes. "I didn't see one anywhere…"

When Mira frowned in confusion, Lucy sighed and said, "That would be because it's on your back. I guess you wanted to have it in a place that you could easily keep hidden, since Master tended to send you on recon missions when you joined."

"I let someone put a stamp on my back?" Erik asked incredulously. "How?"

"Because it was Master," Lucy answered. "You were tense as hell from what you told me, but he did it as quickly as possible and made sure to put it where there weren't any scars. So, it's between your shoulder blades."

"Well, that makes sense then. I didn't have any reason to look at my back when I woke up." Erik frowned and pulled out the scrapbook he'd been carrying with him for the past month. "And I would have had an idea sooner if _your_ guild mark was actually in one of these pictures. I could only see a little bit of it, so I thought you just had a tattoo on your hand."

"We'll just have to fix that then!" Mira said with a wide grin, pulling a camera out from thin air and lifting it into the air triumphantly. "Lucy, let's see that guild mark!"

Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes, then lifted her right hand into the air with the Fairy Tail emblem facing the camera. She leaned into Cobra's side when his arm hesitantly wrapped around her shoulders, then smiled just before the flash momentarily blinded her. Mira handed her the newest picture, and Lucy pulled out a pen while the image appeared on the photo paper.

 _"Lucy Heartfilia, Fairy Tail mage. X795."_

"There," Lucy said with a nod as she stuck it to the inside of the front cover for the scrapbook, "And we'll get a picture of yours later on when we're at home, and I'll put it right in here with mine."

Erik smirked and gently squeezed Lucy's shoulders when he heard the extraordinarily perverted pit her mind had fallen into, then sighed and looked down at the scrapbook while Mira collected everything and made her way back to the bar. "You know," he whispered as his thumb brushed over the first picture in the book of them kissing, "This thing is the only way I even knew we were really together… It's probably why I searched even harder for you…"

"If you'd like, I can tell you what we were doing for these pictures. Maybe it'll help trigger something," Lucy answered softly.

"In a bit, sure," Erik nodded. "I guess you were the one that decorated that apartment, right?"

"Yeah, except for the bedroom," Lucy giggled.

Erik chuckled. "So that was my idea then?"

"Yep, everything except for the mirror," Lucy answered with a sly grin. "Your head nearly exploded when I installed it… And we didn't leave that room for a _very_ long time because of it." When Erik grinned at her, she couldn't help by smile right back. _'If he was in the bedroom, then… I wonder if he found the handcuffs… God, **that** would be hard to explain if… OH, FUCK ME! HE CAN HEAR ME!'_ Lucy slowly turned her head to see Erik staring at her with his eye widened, and his face a shade paler than usual.

"What…?" Clearly she had to be kidding, right? Erik shuddered at the thought of being anywhere near handcuffs, the time when he'd worn those shackles much more recent in his memory than it should have been.

"Oh!" Lucy said quickly when he started trembling slightly. "No! No, don't worry. The handcuffs go on me! It's fine! I actually really like it when you tie me up!"

Erik jolted in surprise, and stared down at Lucy while a very clear memory of hers started playing out in his head.

 _*.*_

 _"Do it, Erik… Fuck, yes! Tie me up…" Lucy writhed and moaned on the bed, her breath hitching when he roughly grabbed her wrists and cuffed them behind her back. She was quickly rolled over from her stomach, and stared up at the mirrored ceiling. She moaned loudly when he threw her legs over his shoulders and dove down face first between her legs, the mirror that she had installed recently giving her the perfect view of just what he was doing to her. "Oh my god!"_

 _*.*_

"Wow," Erik whispered, his voice shaking slightly while the memory faded. "Leave it to me to find the hottest lunatic out there…"

"Aw, thanks," Lucy teased with a blush. "Right back at y—"

"Why the fuck am I hearing about your sex life?!" Laxus shouted from the bar. "Shut the hell up, little sis!" He let out a bark of laughter when Flare smacked him in the back of the head while Lucy gave him the middle finger. "Love you guys, too!"

Erik watched that short interaction between the three, and then his eyes locked onto Laxus'. He raised an eyebrow when he heard what the guy was very intentionally thinking about, then leaned down to whisper in Lucy's ear. "Your brother says someone named Virgo still needs to give him a new set of cuffs since Little Red over there broke through the last ones... Something about her hair burning through them when she got too excited."

Lucy turned back to Laxus and rolled her eyes with a sweet smile on her face. "I'll make sure Virgo gets a pair that's fire resistant, big brother," she said just loud enough for him to hear her. A simple wink was thrown her way before he turned back to his wife, rubbing her stomach tenderly when she curled up to his side.

Erik sighed and looked around at all of the unfamiliar faces. These were people he had apparently known for years. Friends and—from what he'd been told about how the guild worked by Gajeel and Bickslow on the train—family, with tons of memories that he no longer had with them. He didn't remember Kinana, who was once his best friend. He couldn't even remember Erza, who had clearly become an important part of his life if she'd given him her name and they had actually identified as siblings. The worst of all of them was Lucy though. He could feel that connection he had with her from their mating, and a recognition of her soul that echoed in his. His heart sent the barest tendrils of warmth out when he thought of her. He knew it was all there, but the lack of memories to associate with Lucy made it seem as though everything he felt for her was just a figment of his imagination. He hated it. Everything was so different from the memories that he still had, that it just made him feel like he'd been left in the dust somehow.

"Hey, what's with the sourpuss face?" Lucy asked softly, turning in her chair to fully look at her fiancé.

"Just wishing I could actually remember everything," Erik muttered as he looked back down at the scrapbook. He flipped through the pages, looking at all of the memories he should have with Lucy, and sighed when he got to the final page with the picture of the night he'd marked her and proposed. "Especially this… I don't want a damn picture of what happened that night… I want to actually fucking _remember_ it. And you… You're the most important person in my life, and I can hardly remember you… Except for the small shit that's popped up already…"

Lucy smiled down at the picture. She remembered that night so vividly, and she knew that Erik had as well. It had been one of the best nights of her life—and not because of the whole process of him marking her. That was the night she'd gotten everything she wanted in life. She looked back up at Erik's face, then slowly reached up and turned his head so she was looking into his one indigo eye. "Well," she whispered lovingly, "If you don't remember me, then we'll just have to fix that. And if, for whatever reason, Wendy can't help you get your memories back… Then that just means I get to make you fall in love with me all over again, Pan."

Erik's breath stalled in his throat when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. His heart started pounding wildly in his chest as warmth washed over him from where their lips were joined, flowing through his veins and sinking deep into his muscles and bones. The few memories he had of kissing her were nothing in comparison to this. The lips he'd been thinking about for a month were everything he could have wanted, but it was the way her soul started soaring, how the lullaby he had associated with her crescendoed into a full-blown symphony, that had him drowning in her very essence.

He quickly realized that this was the same song he'd heard when he had boarded that train the week prior, except there wasn't a single dissonant tone of desperation altering the melody of her soul. She had really been at the train station that day. It hadn't been just a whispered memory from his own soul. Erik had been blocking out the sounds of everyone around him so much that he had missed her completely. Even though he felt like an asshole for that mistake, Lucy's soul was practically reaching out its warm and inviting arms, and enveloping him completely.

Every trill and tremolo, every note that gently slurred from one pitch to the next, each perfectly harmonized note within the varying melodies left him in awe of the woman in his arms. Erik wanted to say that he would never forget this, but he already knew it was entirely possible. Instead of dwelling on what he had lost, he focused on what she did next. Her tongue lightly flicked out across his lips, and the astoundingly familiar zing of how she tasted mixed with poison had him unknowingly growling possessively and pulling her even closer. His lips parted, allowing her sweet and deliciously sinful tongue to slide into his mouth. Everything inside of him was roaring to life while they kissed, pushing against the fog that had locked his memories away. It wasn't nearly strong enough to break through, but he lucked out when Lucy's own memories of the times they had kissed like this started flowing through her. Erik was so focused on her soul, her memories, the feel of her body pressed to his, and the way she was kissing him as though it was the only way for her to continue living, that he didn't hear a single thing that was happening around them.

"Heh," Bickslow chuckled as he wrapped his arms around Gajeel's waist from behind resting his head on the Iron Slayer's shoulder, "Laxus, I'm surprised you haven't yelled at them for making out yet."

"I don't have a death wish," Laxus reasoned, glancing over to see Erik pulling Lucy into his lap and her back arching while his hands ran over it to the curve of her ass. "Then again, he clearly does..."

Flare sighed happily and playfully flicked her husband in the forehead with a lock of her hair, giggling when he turned his glare to her. "You leave Blondie and Cobra alone. A month without your mate will do that to you, and you know it."

"Doesn't mean I have to fucking like it," Laxus grumbled as he took a swig of his beer. "Couldn't they do that somewhere else, so I don't have to see my little sister being defiled right here?"

"Gihi. Sorry, Sparky," Gajeel laughed. "Looks like you just have to put on your big girl panties and suck it up... Kinda like Bunny's doin'!"

When Laxus growled and got ready to shock the metal bastard—even though he knew Bickslow would get a little bit of it as well—Makarov walked across the bar top with a wide grin on his ancient face. "I was wondering if he was ever going to kiss her at the guild..."

Everyone turned to stare at their guild master, and Mira gasped. "You're right," she whispered in horror, "No one ever sees them kiss! Not unless it's a special occasion, or someone catches them... But even then, it's only a little peck on the lips."

"You're fucking kidding me, right?" Bickslow chuckled. "I'd be all over Cosplayer all the damn time if I was with her."

"Bix," Flare laughed, "We know... You and Mercury Mouth can't keep your hands off of each other... Ever."

"That's because Bix's tongue is a fucking treasure..." Gajeel shot back with a proud grin, turning in Bickslow's arms and pulling his visor off to brush their noses together. "And I'm a greedy ass dragon."

"Damn, you guys are fucking ridiculous," Laxus chuckled. "Five minutes. You can't go five fucking minutes without—See? Now they're ignoring me to make out again…"

Gajeel pulled back and smirked down at the slightly dazed expression on Bickslow's face, then turned to Laxus and said, "Not our fault you're a cold-hearted bastard. Looney Tune, give your man some lovin'… Maybe you can pull that lightning rod out of his ass."

When Flare just kept humming tunelessly while staring off into space and rubbing her belly, clearly having one of her little moments of introspection that he'd come to know so well, Laxus shook his head at Gajeel. "At least I had the balls to make her my mate, Bolt Biter. What's your excuse?"

Bickslow was finally broken free from his stupor and turned to look at his oldest friend with a tongue lolling grin. "He doesn't have an excuse, boss man." He rolled up the sleeve on his left arm, and showed Laxus the small cluster of iron scales that wrapped around his forearm like a bracer. "He asked me a couple days ago. I was gonna tell you when we got back from that mission."

"Son of a bitch," Laxus whispered in shock, looking from the mark on Bickslow's arm to Gajeel's cocky grin and back. After he took a moment to let the information sink in, he narrowed his eyes and gave Gajeel a hard glare. "Hurt him and I'll fucking end you."

"Trust me, I don't plan on it."

"Sorry, I don't think all the lovin' in the world could get that lightning rod out of his ass," Flare finally said when she came back to reality. "I could try getting a whole hand up there to pull it out, but he won't let me get more than a finger in."

"Yes, it's been wedged up there for years," Makarov chimed in, cackling as he jumped out of the way when a 'mysterious' bolt of lightning shot towards him.

"See, Sparky? It's hopeless," Gajeel laughed.

"You're so fucking dead," Laxus growled.

Lucy slowly lifted her head to catch her breath when there was a loud crash at the table right next to her and Erik. She turned to see a slightly smoking Gajeel stand up and brush debris off of himself before yelling out something about Laxus and fingers in his ass as he rushed back into the beginning stage of a guild-wide brawl. Seemingly nonplussed, she turned back to Erik with a seductive smile. "I missed you too, Pan."

Erik was torn between going right back to what they were doing, and watching as nearly every member of the guild started fighting one another. Tables and chairs were thrown everywhere, magic misfired and hit pillars and rafters. A guy with short black hair threw his shirt off faster than Erik could see while a chilled mist surrounded him. Natsu was breathing fire from his mouth while riding on top of a huge, muscled man with white hair, screaming about being 'fired up'. A soft laugh caught his attention, and he turned back to look up at Lucy, only just realizing that she was straddling him and her nails were lightly dragging over his scalp while she smiled down at him. "What kind of fucked up insane asylum did I wander into?" he asked carefully.

"Oh that?" Lucy asked sweetly. "That's just the first party brawl. There should be about four more before midnight."

"It's already seven at night, Lucy."

She nodded happily then leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the lips she'd been missing for so long. "Just another day in Fairy Tail," she whispered.

Erik couldn't help but smile back while he listened to her soul's lilting melody while she stared deeply into his eye. "Y'know," he said softly, sliding his hands up from what he belatedly realized was the most perfect ass he'd ever felt, "I don't think you'll have to work too hard to get me to fall in love with you, Tink." He chuckled when Lucy's eyes lit up, her thoughts revolving around his use of her little nickname. "Your soul's singing, and it makes me feel like I'm home."

Lucy giggled as happy tears filled her eyes. _'I love you so much, Erik,'_ she thought. She brought her hands to his cheeks, her thumb brushing over the bottom portion of the scar on his right eye, and said, "Well then… Welcome home, Pan."

Erik gently brushed away the few tears that had escaped her eyes, then leaned up and brushed his lips against hers when he replied, "I love you too, Tink. Told you I'd always find you…" When Lucy let out a watery and downright giddy laugh, he finally closed the distance and kissed her with everything he was worth. It didn't matter to him in that moment if he ever got his memories back, because he could always make new ones with Lucy and the rest of Fairy Tail. While he would love to remember the night that he'd marked her, or the day they had met, there was still a whole future of possibilities that were just waiting for him and his beautiful little Fairy to explore. Lucy's arms slid around his shoulders, his hands glided down to the small of her back, and while they both basked in the utter perfection of being reunited with the one whose soul was so closely tied to their own, all Erik could think ...

* * *

 _And bring me home  
At last_

* * *

 **Thank you all so much for joining me for my very first pairing week. I had a blast writing seven days' worth of CoLu, and I'm so glad that _Dragon'sHost_ and _Eien ni Touko_ decided to make this a thing!  
**

 **The song that was used for this story are from the movie Anastasia ('Journey to the Past'). I decided to take a page from my fellow authors on the site and use the lyrics as a point of narration instead of being sung in the chapter.  
** -Here is the link on YouTube: _watch?v=nIk0PdXsU9c_

 **An _enormous_ shout-out goes to _LittlePrincessNana_ for being the most amazing form of support during my plotting and editing for all seven prompts. Along with the most wonderful late-night, weekend brainstorming for ridiculous stories! I had been planning on all seven being a surprise (even for her) and then… I just couldn't keep it away from my lovely Triplet! Good thing I didn't, because she ended up helping me fully plot out some of the prompts (like 'Rumors', with her role-playing as Cobra during a Skype conversation!)**

 **Also, I'd like to send another small shout-out to _Dragon'sHost_ for the idea of him having Erza's last name from her Family prompt story, _The Scarlet Family_. Credit where credit's due and all that.**

 **This week could never have happened without all of you, and if I've forgotten anyone in my little shout-out section (whether today or throughout the week), then this is my sincere apology! I appreciate all of you! And you can blame it on my brain being otherwise occupied with life things.**

 **As a side note: If you would like to see this particular prompt as a full-length chapter story, then please let me know. There were several ideas that I had for this story, but I didn't want this to be _too_ long. If I do make it a full-length story, then it will start in the same place as this, follow the same plot, and then extend afterwards for an undetermined amount of time (which will include smut, if that helps to sway you…)**

 **Keep an eye out for my upcoming CoLu chapter story, _Poison Fairy._ It will be coming out some time after the epilogue for _He Might Be the One_ is posted.**

 **So… Review, Follow, Favorite! I love you, guys! Thanks for reading!**

 **~~GemNika.**


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